Innovation Spillover and Merger Decisions

43 Pages Posted: 22 Nov 2017 Last revised: 22 Jul 2018

See all articles by Mahdiyeh Entezarkheir

Mahdiyeh Entezarkheir

University of Western Ontario - Huron University College

Saeed Moshiri

University of Saskatchewan - Saint Thomas More College

Date Written: November 17, 2017

Abstract

Merger activities in innovative industries point to a relation between mergers and innovation. Firms' innovative ideas may spillover to other firms dis-incentivizing innovation activities, and merger may be a way to capture innovation spillover. The merger-innovation nexus has been well studied in the theoretical literature and recently in empirical papers, but empirical evidence on merger and innovation spillover is limited. In this paper, we investigate the impact of innovation spillovers on the likelihood of firms to merge, using a panel data set of mergers among publicly traded U.S. manufacturing firms from 1980 to 2003. In our empirical model, we also control for business cycles and proxies of neoclassical, behavioural and Q theories of mergers. Innovation is measured using R&D investments and citation-weighted patents, and innovation spillover is proxied using the technological proximity of firms. As a source of R\&D spillover (outward spillover), a firm can internalize its spillover effects by acquiring targets that benefit from the spillover. As a receiver of an R&D spillover (inward spillover), a firm may want to merge to control the negative impact of others' innovation on its competitive edge. We find that innovative firms are on average more likely to merge. These findings are robust to using a measure of patent ownership fragmentation as our instrumental variable. Our results also show that within-industry inward R&D spillovers increase mergers, but between-industry inward R&D spillovers do not influence merger decisions significantly. Our main results are robust to alternative measures of spillovers and different estimation methods.

Suggested Citation

Entezarkheir, Mahdiyeh and Moshiri, Saeed, Innovation Spillover and Merger Decisions (November 17, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3074653 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3074653

Mahdiyeh Entezarkheir (Contact Author)

University of Western Ontario - Huron University College ( email )

1349 Western Road
London, Ontario N6G1H3
Canada

Saeed Moshiri

University of Saskatchewan - Saint Thomas More College ( email )

1437 College Drive
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 0W
Canada

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