Over the past two decades, cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have played a central role in global economic integration by reallocating capital, technology, and managerial control across national boundaries. Cross-border deals have enabled firms to access new markets, acquire strategic assets, and reorganize production and innovation networks at scale. Since the mid-2010s, however, this process has increasingly taken place in an environment characterized by global fragmentation: rising geopolitical tensions, tighter foreign investment screening, regulatory divergence, and heightened uncertainty surrounding cross-border corporate activity. These shifts plausibly raise the costs of cross-border corporate control and increase the importance of both firm capacity and country-pair frictions in determining which transactions occur. 

While a large literature studies aggregate trends in cross-border M&A volumes, less is known about how fragmentation reshapes the micro-foundations of cross-border deal-making. In particular, evidence remains limited on how these changes affect which firms engage in cross-border acquisitions, how strongly deal initiation is shaped by firm characteristics such as scale and financial capacity, and which announced deals successfully complete rather than being withdrawn or delayed. By focusing on firm-level selection and deal execution outcomes, this project aims to provide systematic evidence on how cross-border M&A operates when global integration becomes more constrained and selective. 

The project will construct a global, deal-level dataset of cross-border M&A transactions from 2000 to 2025 using SDC Platinum, merged with acquirer financial characteristics from Compustat Global. The undergraduate research assistant (RA) will focus on two empirically tractable margins: (i) deal initiation, measured by whether firms announce cross-border acquisitions in a given year, and (ii) deal execution, measured by whether announced cross-border deals are ultimately completed or withdrawn. 

The primary contribution of the project is the creation of a clean, replication-ready dataset and a disciplined set of empirical patterns documenting how acquirer characteristics (e.g., scale, profitability, and financial capacity proxies) and country-pair frictions (e.g., distance and economic proximity measures) relate to cross-border deal-making before and after the mid-2010s shift toward global fragmentation. These outputs will support credible cross-sectional and time-series comparisons, generate clear descriptive and regression-based evidence suitable for a DARE symposium presentation, and provide a strong foundation for subsequent faculty-led extensions that may incorporate more advanced identification strategies. 

KEY COMPONENTS OF THE RESEARCH 

1. Literature Review Process

The literature review will synthesize research in three related areas. First, it will review the corporate finance and international business literature on cross-border M&A, with attention to deal initiation, completion, and withdrawal. Second, it will examine research on firm heterogeneity and selection into international activity, emphasizing how firm size, profitability, and diversification shape engagement in cross-border transactions. Third, it will situate the project within the emerging literature on global fragmentation, focusing on how geopolitical and regulatory frictions alter patterns of international corporate integration. 

The objective of the review is to identify gaps in existing empirical work, particularly the limited evidence on firm-level sorting and deal execution outcomes in the post-2016 environment. The review will inform variable selection and empirical design, while remaining accessible to an undergraduate researcher. 

2. Conceptual Framework

The project is organized around a simple conceptual mechanism. Cross-border M&A involves costs related to information, regulation, and institutional differences across countries. As global fragmentation intensifies, these costs are expected to rise, leading to stronger selection into cross-border activity. Larger, more profitable, or more diversified firms may be better positioned to absorb these costs and to successfully complete foreign acquisitions. At the same time, deal execution may increasingly depend on country-pair characteristics such as geographic proximity and institutional compatibility. The empirical analysis will document whether these relationships become more pronounced in the post-2016 period relative to earlier years. 

3. Data Construction and Measurement

The empirical backbone of the project is a firm–deal panel constructed from SDC Platinum and Compustat Global.  

Deal-level data (SDC Platinum): 

• All announced cross-border M&A transactions worldwide from 2000–2025.
• Key variables include announcement date, deal status (completed or withdrawn), completion date, deal value (when available), acquirer and target countries, and industry classifications.

Firm-level data (Compustat Global): 

• Public acquirers matched to SDC records.
• Core characteristics include firm size (e.g., total assets), profitability measures (e.g., return on assets), financial capacity indicators, and diversification proxies (e.g., segment counts).

Country-pair covariates: 

• Geographic distance and basic macro indicators from standard international datasets.
• Indicators of economic proximity, such as trade agreement membership.

The project will prioritize outcomes and variables with broad coverage and will transparently document data availability across years and countries. 

4. Empirical Analysis

The empirical analysis will focus on two related questions. 

(A) Deal initiation.  

At the firm–year level, the project will examine how firm characteristics are associated with the probability of announcing a cross-border acquisition, and whether these associations strengthen after 2016. 

(B) Deal execution.  

At the deal level, conditional on announcement, the project will examine whether firm characteristics and country-pair frictions are associated with completion versus withdrawal, and whether these relationships differ between the pre- and post-2016 periods. 

The analysis will rely on descriptive statistics, regression-based estimates, and visualizations (e.g., predicted probability plots and coefficient comparisons). The emphasis is on documenting systematic patterns rather than making causal claims. 

1. Literature Review (Weeks 1–2)

• Conduct a structured review of research on cross-border M&A, firm heterogeneity, and global fragmentation.

• Begin an annotated bibliography and a short synthesis memo summarizing key hypotheses and empirical approaches.

 

2. Data Collection and Preparation (Weeks 3–6)

• Extract global cross-border M&A data from SDC Platinum for 2000–2025.

• Clean and standardize deal records, including dates, countries, and deal status.

• Merge public acquirers with firm-level financial data from Compustat Global.

 

3. Variable Construction and Validation (Weeks 7–8)

• Construct firm-level variables capturing size, profitability, financial capacity, and diversification.

• Create indicators for cross-border versus domestic deals and for deal completion.

• Produce summary statistics and coverage tables by year and region.

 

4. Empirical Analysis and Visualization (Weeks 9–11)

• Implement core analyses of deal initiation and deal execution.

• Generate tables and figures illustrating pre- and post-2016 patterns.

• Prepare short interpretation notes describing robust findings.

 

5. Communication of Results (Weeks 12–14)

• Draft a final research report documenting data construction, methods, and results.

• Prepare a poster and presentation for the DARE poster exhibition and celebration event.

Throughout the project, the student will receive close supervision and guidance. Detailed coding protocols and database-specific implementation steps will be developed during the initial training phase of the summer.

The ideal candidate should have a strong academic foundation, solid quantitative skills, and a genuine interest in international corporate finance and global capital markets. Candidates should have completed coursework in statistics, econometrics, corporate finance, or financial statement analysis, and be comfortable working with large structured datasets and interpreting empirical results. Proficiency in Python (or R) is essential, including experience with data cleaning, merging, and reproducible workflows. The candidate should also be able to produce clear tables and visualizations using standard tools (e.g., Matplotlib) to communicate empirical patterns effectively, and demonstrate curiosity about how global economic conditions and policy frictions shape cross-border corporate activity.

Additional assets include experience with firm-level or transaction-level financial data, familiarity with panel and applied regression methods, strong organization and attention to detail, and the ability to work independently while documenting decisions clearly. This position offers the opportunity to contribute to research at the intersection of corporate finance and international economics, with an emphasis on rigorous data construction and empirically grounded analysis in a supportive and collaborative environment.

SIGNIFICANCE AND CONTRIBUTION

This research advances understanding of cross-border M&A in an era of global fragmentation by shifting attention from aggregate deal volumes to firm-level selection and deal execution. By building a global, replication-ready dataset linking SDC Platinum cross-border deals to Compustat Global firm characteristics (2000–2025), the project will provide systematic evidence on which firms initiate cross-border acquisitions and which announced deals successfully complete under heightened geopolitical and regulatory frictions.

The project aligns with DARE’s objectives by providing end-to-end research training in literature synthesis, data construction, variable definition, empirical analysis, and professional communication. The resulting dataset and findings will inform scholarly and policy debates on corporate internationalization, investment screening, and the evolving structure of global corporate control, while reinforcing best practices in transparent measurement and reproducible workflows. By examining how firms navigate a fragmenting world, this project directly engages with the LA&PS mission of understanding complex global challenges and their impact on economic and professional practice.

CONCLUSION

This project will contribute to the empirical literature on cross-border M&A by developing a high-quality global dataset and documenting systematic patterns in deal initiation and completion before and after the mid-2010s shift toward global fragmentation. The student’s active role will build advanced skills in applied data work, empirical modeling, and research communication, while producing outputs suitable for presentation in the DARE symposium setting. With its clear research question, feasible empirical scope, and strong training component, the project exemplifies the value of undergraduate research in addressing timely questions in global corporate finance.