Public Policy Toward Corporate Takeovers

This volume examines critical issues in the debate over the effects' of the current wave of corporate takeovers. Media accounts are often sensational, but proposed public policy remedies need to be evaluated on the basis of more than simple rhetoric. The studies contained in this collection provide solid economic grounding for the debate. Public Policy Toward Corporate Takeovers is the result of extensive research sponsored by the Center for the Study of American Business and directed by Murray Weidenbaum; it examines key aspects of takeovers: the evolving regulatory role of the Antitrust Division, state versus federal authority over offensive and defensive takeover maneuvers, whether leveraged buyouts improve the firm's economic performance, and the validity of assertions about "entrenched" managements. The book also includes the views of the most publicized corporate raider, T. Boone Pickens. Balancing Pickens' highly favorable view of the value of hostile takeovers as a disciplining factor for subpar management performance is a chapter by David Ravenscraft of the Federal Trade Commission, who takes a long-term viewpoint and argues that the popular belief that takeovers create substantial efficiencies has not been borne out by the record. The overall findings do not fully support either side of the takeover controversy. The book presents both legal and economic perspectives, and suggests strategies for government policymakers as well as leaders of private enterprise.