Cross-Border Mergers and Domestic Wages: Integrating Positive 'Spillover' Effects and Negative 'Bargaining' Effects

摘要

The existing literature concerning the impact of cross-border merger activity on domesticudwages can be split into two camps: 1) those focusing on positive 'spillover' effects; 2) thoseudfocusing on negative 'bargaining' effects. Motivated in part by the lack of scholarshipudspanning these two literatures, we provide a theoretical model that nests these twoudmechanisms in one conceptual framework. From our theoretical model we are able toudpredict that 'spillover' effects tend to be more dominant under low unionization rates, whileud'bargaining' effects tend to be more dominant under high unionization rates; furthermore,ud'spillover' effects tend to be more dominant with inward cross-border mergers, whileud'bargaining' effects tend to be more dominant with outward cross-border mergers. Weudemploy comprehensive panel data on wages, unionization and merger activity for USudindustry sectors over the 1986-2001 period in order to test the impact of cross-borderudmerger activity on domestic wages. We find support for our propositions in that higherudunionization rates make it more likely that cross-border mergers generate wage decreases,udwhile outward cross-border mergers more likely involve wage decreases than do inwardudcross-border mergers. (author's abstract)