Mergers and Acquisitions, Technological Change and Inequality

Mergers and Acquisitions, Technological Change and Inequality

Wenting Ma, Paige Ouimet, Elena Simintzi

Series number :

Serial Number: 
485/2016

Date posted :

March 12 2018

Last revised :

January 07 2021
SSRN Share

Keywords

  • M&A • 
  • Occupational Change • 
  • technological change • 
  • Wage Inequality

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are an important mechanism through which new technology is adopted by firms. We document patterns of labor reallocation and wage changes following M&As, consistent with the adoption of technology.

Specifically, we show target establishments invest more in technology, become less routine task intensive, employ a greater share of high technology workers, and pay more unequal wages. We document evidence for three non-mutually exclusive mechanisms underlying this effect: differences in the ability to integrate technology efficiently; agency conflicts; and, occupational scale. Moreover, the within-establishment patterns generalize to the industry-level, confirming the external validity of our findings.

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Authors

Ms.
Real name:
Wenting Ma
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor
Real name:
Paige Ouimet
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Real name:
Elena Simintzi
UBC Sauder