Do mergers lead to financial instability? How are shareholders' interests best served? How significant a role do taxes play? What are the implications for the structure and concentration of industry? Mergers and Acquisitions, prepared in an nontechnical format, answers these and other questions that have arisen from the takeover boom that began in the mid-1980s.

"A significant piece of scholarship."—Peter Fuhrman, Forbes

"Accessible to interested laypersons and policy makers. . . . [A] thoroughly readable and informative book."—Gregg A. Jarrell, Journal of Economic Literature