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An assimilation bias occurs when people’s evaluative judgment is positively influenced by a previously observed signal. We study this effect by examining investors’ appraisal of M&A deals announced 1 day after other firms in the same 1-digit SIC as the merging parties release earnings surprises. Consistent with assimilation effects, acquirers’ M&A announcement stock return initially correlates with the previous day’s earnings surprises. This effect reverses after 1 week. Assimilation generates other distortions as more positive surprises are related to increases in bid competition, takeover premiums, and withdrawn M&As. Evidence from IPOs corroborates the presence of assimilation effects in financial markets.

This paper studies how tax increases transmit across countries through multinationals’ internal networks of subsidiaries. Using a large subsidiary-level dataset of European firms and several exogenous tax hikes, we find that local business units cut capital investment in response to foreign tax increases. We document two channels that propagate these shocks through firms’ internal networks: production linkages among subsidiaries and financial constraints. In the aggregate, domestic investment and employment decline with higher exposure to foreign tax increases, suggesting that tax increases in one country can spill over to other foreign countries.

This article provides insights into the inner workings of internal corporate M&A teams using survey evidence from sixty-five firms from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. We find that internal teams create value, especially relative to external advisors, by directing transaction rationales, screening targets, and employing performance metrics to assess post-merger success. Teams emphasizing economic rationales as a merger motive are associated with higher returns than those teams more apt to consider behavioral motives. We consider several team characteristics and find that financial experience is the most persistent and significant attribute in explaining the outcomes across various deal stages. Another key result from our survey-based evidence is that latent M&A team factors explain ∼54% of the acquirer fixed effects in announcement return regressions.

We examine the reasons why some bidders choose to voluntarily announce a merger negotiation before the signature of a definitive agreement. We propose an “announce-to-signal” explanation: early announcements allow bidders to signal to the target shareholders high synergy of the transaction, so as to overcome negotiation frictions and improve success rates. However, early announcements raise the target’s reservation price. In equilibrium, bidders rationally tradeoff higher success rates and costs. Consistent with this explanation, we show that a bidder’s weak bargaining position predicts an earlier announcement. Early announced transactions are associated with higher expected synergies and completion rates. Public competition and offer premium are also higher in these transactions, consistent with costly signaling. However, bidder announcement returns do not suggest the existence of overpayment in early announced deals.

We examine how firms’ vertical structure affects investment under output price uncertainty. Exploiting a unique industrial organization in the oil exploration and production industry, where certain producers vertically integrate into downstream segments, we find that these integrated producers cut investments significantly more than do standalone producers under exogenous oil price uncertainty shocks. This finding is consistent with a real option model of investment, where a higher level of capital irreversibility amplifies the uncertainty effects on actual investment. We demonstrate that our results cannot be explained by intersegment investment transfer or financial constraints.

Selection cooperation is a practical scheme of improving cooperative system performance. However, common selection cooperation schemes largely focus on the source-destination and relay-destination channels to exploit available gains. In this letter, we propose a feedback-based selection cooperation protocol with additional consideration about available relay-relay channels and analyze its performance in terms of outage probability. The result shows that the additional relay-relay cooperation can provide significant gains. We also show that even if no combining reception is performed in this protocol, for the outage probability, it still outperforms the conventional selection protocol with the use of relay-relay channels.

We test the independence of news content from journalists’ social networks. We find that business news reported by connected journalists—such as those sharing a working relationship or common schooling institutions with the respective company management—are associated with markedly more favorable coverage. Connected articles significantly increase short-term stock returns but also distort longer-term capital allocation, suggesting real effects of journalist connections in the economy. We make causal inferences about the connection effects by exploring exogenous journalist turnovers and an ownership change of the Wall Street Journal.

This paper provides insights into the inner workings of internal corporate M&A teams using survey evidence from 65 firms from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. We find that internal teams create value, especially relative to external advisors, by directing transaction rationales, screening targets, and employing performance metrics to assess post-merger success. Teams emphasizing economic rationales as a merger motive are associated with higher returns than those teams more apt to consider behavioral motives. We consider several team characteristics and find that financial experience is the most persistent and significant attribute in explaining the outcomes across various deal stages. Another key result from our survey-based evidence is that latent M&A team factors explain approximately 54% of the acquirer fixed effects in announcement return regressions.

We study earnings surprises disclosed hours before M&A announcements in which both merging firms operate in the same 1-digit SIC as the earnings-releasing firms. These surprises correlate with the acquirers’ M&A announcement return. Consistent with behavioral theory, one week after the M&A announcement, acquirers’ response to the earnings surprises disappears. While acquirers’ stock misvaluation is transitory, other effects to the M&A process are permanent. Larger earnings surprises are related to increases in bid competition, in takeover premiums, and in withdrawn M&As. These results indicate that behavioral biases, characterized by trend-seeking and extrapolation, generate material distortions in some M&A transactions.

Selection cooperation is a preferable cooperative scheme for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for its simplification and easy implementation. In this paper, we present a selection cooperation experimental platform (CEP) based on IEEE 802.15.4 WSNs using cheap radios. This work concentrates on employing the lightweight selection cooperation protocol (LSCP) with feedback to govern the cooperation between sensor nodes, and all the work of LSCP is finished on the open MSSTATE LRWPAN protocol stack. Different from previous similar works, we optimize the feedback mechanism and seamlessly integrate the LSCP into the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol used in the MSSTATE LRWPAN without changing any original function of the protocol stack. First, we present the main processes of LSCP from the point of view of practical application. This is followed by the description of the experimental platform, mainly including the establishment of the WSNs and the implementation of LSCP. Finally, a group of experiments including comparison and self-comparison tests are performed in different real-world settings to verify the performance of the LSCP. The test results, especially the comparison test results, demonstrate that the transmission performance of WSNs is significantly improved by utilizing LSCP, and the LSCP achieves almost the same performance as the decode-and-forward (D&F) cooperative scheme with diversity combination.

To evaluate the effectiveness of high tibial osteotomy (HTO) assisted by three-dimensional (3-D) printing technology for correction of varus knee with osteoarthritis.Between January 2014 and June 2015, 16 patients (20 knees) with varus knee and osteoarthritis underwent HTO assisted by 3-D printing technology; a locking compression plate was used for internal fixation after HTO. There were 6 males and 10 females, aged 30-60 years (mean, 45.5 years). The disease duration was 1-10 years (mean, 6.2 years). The unilateral knee was involved in 12 cases and bilateral knees in 4 cases. According to Koshino's staging system, 3 knees were classified as stage I, 7 knees as stage II, 8 knees as stage III, and 2 knees as stage IV. Preoperative Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) knee score was 63.8 ± 2.2; the femorotibial angle was (184.8 ± 2.9)°; and Insall-Salvati index was 1.03 ± 0.13.All the wounds healed primarily, and no complication of infection, osteofacial compartment syndrom, or deep vein thrombosis was observed. All patients were followed up 6-18 months (mean, 12.6 months). Personal paralysis was observed in 1 case (1 knee), and was cured after expectant treatment. Bone union time was 2.7-3.4 months (mean, 2.9 months). At 6 months after operation, the femorotibial angle was (173.8 ± 2.0)°, showing significant difference when compared with preoperative one (t = 11.70, P = 0.00); Insall-Salvati index was 1.04 ± 0.12, showing no significant difference when compared with preoperative one (t = -0.20, P = 0.85); and HSS knee score was significantly increased to 88.9 ± 3.1 (t = -25.44, P = 0.00). At last follow-up, the results were excellent in 13 knees, good in 6 knees, fair in 1 knee, and the excellent and good rate was 95%.3-D printing cutting block can greatly improve the accuracy of HTO, avoid repeated X-ray and multiple osteotomy, shorten the operation time, and ensure better effectiveness for correction of varus knee with osteoarthritis.

While much attention has been paid to the role of foreign bribery in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, the evidence to date has been primarily anecdotal. I provide the first large-sample evidence that acquirers’ ability to bribe determines their engagement in the cross-border transactions. Using the OECD Anti-bribery Convention as an exogenous shock that limits acquirers’ ability to pay bribes in foreign markets, I find that deal frequency decreases significantly from affected countries after the law enactment. More corrupt target countries experience a greater decline in cross-border deals. However, the effect of the anti-bribery legislation is mainly concentrated on public acquirers. Postlegislation acquirers are on average smaller and more competitive. Finally, I argue that anti-bribery laws are costly – this is evident from deal value destruction that can be as high as 28% of the total transaction synergy.