Killer acquisitions and beyond: Policy effects on innovation strategies

Arbeitspapier

This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups. We show that prohibiting killer acquisitions strictly reduces the variety of innovation projects. By contrast, we find that prohibiting other acquisitions only has a weakly negative innovation effect, and we provide conditions under which the effect is zero. Furthermore, for both killer and other acquisitions, we identify market conditions under which the innovation effect is small, so that prohibiting acquisitions to enhance competition would be justified.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 358

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives ; Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices ; Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Voting; Proxy Contests; Corporate Governance
• Subject: innovation ; killer acquisitions ; merger policy ; potential competition ; start-ups

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Letina, Igor ; Schmutzler, Armin ; Seibel, Regina
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Zurich, Department of Economics
• (where): Zurich
• (when): 2020

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.5167/uzh-189748
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/224202
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET