Oil Price Uncertainty and M&A Activity
研究了油价不确定性对美国油气行业并购活动的影响，发现油价不确定性会抑制未来并购，尤其是上下游企业的横向和纵向并购，支持实物期权理论。
This study examines the impact of oil price uncertainty on mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity in the oil and gas sector. Analyzing this industry enables us to construct a natural forward-looking measure of oil price uncertainty, namely the implied crude oil volatility. Using a sample of U.S. firms in the oil and gas sector from 1994–2018 containing 4,323 announced transactions, we document that oil price uncertainty is negatively related to future M&A activity. Uncertainty is mainly a driver of horizontal and vertical M&A activity, where upstream firms are more affected by this uncertainty than downstream firms. Our results lend support to a real options explanation of investment under uncertainty where firms choose to defer investments as a response to increased uncertainty.