Testing The Effects Of Mergers And Acquisitions On Research And Development Activity In Us Manufacturing

It is widely thought that increases in corporate mergers and acquisitions of the sort which the United States has experienced in the recent past lead to a reduction in such long term investment activities as R&D because of a shortened horizon on the part of managers. This paper uses a newly created dataset containing all acquisitions of publicly traded firms in the manufacturing sector in the last ten years to answer some basic questions which pertain to this issue. I find that the firms involved in acquisitions and mergers where both partners are in the manufacturing sector have roughly the same pattern of R&D spending as the sector as a whole and that the acquisition itself does not cause a reduction in R&D activity on the part of these firms. Moreover, the R&D capital thus acquired is valued more highly by the acquiring firm than by the stock market. On the other hand, I also find that the substantial increase in the number and size of acquisitions made by privately held firms in the eighties is concentrated primarily on firms with low R&D intensity which also are in non-R&D intensive industries. Because the pattern of low investment in R&D is longstanding, and because the firms taken over have less rather than more R&D capital than the industry as a whole, it seems unlikely that the recent increase in takeover activity has had a significantly negative effect on R&D spending in these industries

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Economic analysis of high-tech industries often assumes that firms¿ abilities to survive in such an industry depend on their own internal R&D efforts. High-tech firms may choose to specialize in either this internal growth (through R&D) strategy or an external growth strategy of acquiring other firms or firms¿ operations. They studied 200 electronics firms over 10 years to test the relationship between R&D intensity and the probability of acquisition. Robust to a variety of dependent variable specifications, they find a strong and significant negative correlation, suggesting that electronics firms may be specializing in one activity or the other. Firms with greater intangible assets, higher profitability and lower debt to asset ratios are more likely to acquire. Tables.

We provide a model and empirical tests showing how an active acquisition market affects firm incentives to innovate and conduct R&D. Our model shows that small firms optimally may decide to innovate more when they can sell out to larger firms. Large firms may find it disadvantageous to engage in an "R&D race" with small firms, as they can obtain access to innovation through acquisition. Our model and evidence show that the R&D responsiveness of firms increases with demand, competition and industry merger and acquisition activity. All of these effects are stronger for smaller firms than for larger firms.