International Mergers and Acquisitions Activity Since 1990

performance and adjust it to the mean pre- and post-operating performance of the

combined peer companies. Unsurprisingly, we find that the results based on means

are more volatile than those based on medians because of the influence of outliers.

Nonetheless, our initial conclusion remains unchanged, as we find no statistically

significant changes in the operating performance following acquisition.

Second, we employ the market value of assets as an alternative scale factor

for our cash flow measure, as applied in previous U.S. studies. Following Healy,

Palepu, and Ruback (1992), we define the market value of assets as the market

capitalization of equity ...