The 49th European Finance Association Annual Meeting happened from the 24th until the 27th of August in Barcelona, Spain. It was organised by IESE Business School in Barcelona and there, Rui Silva had his paper presented.  

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If you want to read the paper you can do so in the following links:

“How do Acquisitions Affect the Mental Health of Employees?” by Rui Silva

Abstract: Using employer-employee level data linked to individual health records, we document that the incidence of stress, anxiety, depression, psychiatric medication usage, and even suicide increase following acquisitions. These effects are prevalent among employees from both targets and acquirers, in weak as well as in growing, profitable firms. Employees who experience negative career developments within the merging firms, ’blue-collar’ workers, and employees with lower cognitive and non-cognitive skills are most affected. A variety of tests address endogeneity concerns, including an analysis exploiting failed mergers. Our findings point to mental illness as a significant non-pecuniary cost of acquisitions.