This study offers several new perspectives on the effects of competition in takeover contests on bidder returns. Using a more extensive database than existing studies and employing several different measures of success in takeovers, we find that success in competitive acquisitions decreases shareholder wealth relative to both failure and success in observed single-bidder takeovers. Further, we consider and test hypotheses regarding bidder returns, including hypotheses suggested by the preemptive bidding theory. In general, our results neither support the preemptive bidding theory nor the hypotheses linking the method of payment and the observed level of competition. We also test hypotheses relating to returns across the multiple events in a multiple-bid contest that competition among bidders generates. The results of these tests underscore the importance of timing as well as success of a bid to the bidder's subsequent performance.

With extensive cross-country datasets and India firm samples, as well as our own surveys of small and medium firms, we examine the legal and business environments, financing channels, and growth patterns of different types of firms in India. Despite the English common-law origin and a British-style judicial system, Indian firms face weak investor protection in practice and poor institutions characterized by corruption and inefficiency. Alternative finance, including financing from all nonbank, nonmarket sources, and generally backed by nonlegal mechanisms, constitutes the most important form of external finance. Bank loans provide the second most important external financing source. Firms with access to bank or market finance are not associated with higher growth rates. Our results indicate that bank and market finance is not superior to alternative finance in fast-growing economies such as India.