Do Mergers and Acquisitions Improve Efficiency? Evidence from Power Plants.

We analyze acquisitions in US power plants by using rich data on hourly productivity and thousands of ownership changes. We find a 2% average increase in efficiency for acquired plants, beginning 5 months after acquisition. Efficiency gains rise to 5% under direct ownership changes, with no signific...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Journal of Political Economy Vol. 134; no. 8; pp. 2262 - 2313
Autores principales: Demirer, Mert, Karaduman, Ömer
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: University of Chicago Press Aug2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Aug2026
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      pub: University of Chicago Press
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        atl: Do Mergers and Acquisitions Improve Efficiency? Evidence from Power Plants.
      aug:
        au:
          Demirer, Mert
          Karaduman, Ömer
        affil:
          MIT Sloan School of Management
          Stanford Graduate School of Business
      su:
        United States
        Labor productivity
        Resource allocation
        Mergers & acquisitions
        Economic efficiency
        Process optimization
        Power plants
        Sale of business enterprises
      sug:
        subj:
          Labor productivity
          Resource allocation
          United States
          Power and Communication Line and Related Structures Construction
          Mergers & acquisitions
          Economic efficiency
          Process optimization
          Power plants
          Sale of business enterprises
      ab: We analyze acquisitions in US power plants by using rich data on hourly productivity and thousands of ownership changes. We find a 2% average increase in efficiency for acquired plants, beginning 5 months after acquisition. Efficiency gains rise to 5% under direct ownership changes, with no significant change when only parent ownership changes. Investigating the mechanisms, three-quarters of the efficiency gain is attributed to increased productive efficiency, while the rest comes from dynamic efficiency through changes in production allocation. Our evidence suggests that high-productivity firms buy underperforming assets from low-productivity firms and make them as productive as their existing assets through operational improvements.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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