Low-latency gravitational wave alert products and their performance at the time of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run.

Multimessenger searches for binary neutron star (BNS) and neutron star-black hole (NSBH) mergers are currently one of the most exciting areas of astronomy. The search for joint electromagnetic and neutrino counterparts to gravitational wave (GW)s has resumed with ALIGO's, AdVirgo's and KAGRA's fourth observing run (O4). To support this effort, public semiautomated data products are sent in near real-time and include localization and source properties to guide complementary observations. In preparation for O4, we have conducted a study using a simulated population of compact binaries and a mock data challenge (MDC) in the form of a real-time replay to optimize and profile the software infrastructure and scientific deliverables. End-toend performance was tested, including data ingestion, running online search pipelines, performing annotations, and issuing alerts to the astrophysics community. We present an overview of the low-latency infrastructure and the performance of the data products that are now being released during O4 based on the MDC. We report the expected median latency for the preliminary alert of full bandwidth searches (29.5 s) and show consistency and accuracy of released data products using the MDC. We report the expected median latency for triggers from early warning searches (-3.1 s), which are new in O4 and target neutron star mergers during inspiral phase. This paper provides a performance overview for LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) low-latency alert infrastructure and data products using theMDCand serves as a useful reference for the interpretation of O4 detections.

Making more of less: using divestitures to unlock pharmaceutical innovation.

Pharmaceutical managers have been encouraged to look to acquisitions and alliances for innovation. However, the literature warns that the capacity of a company to 'absorb' new knowledge is limited. Here, we introduce corporate divestitures as a tool for freeing up managerial attention. We build a sample of 349 companies, which announced 1784 divestitures and filed 63523 patents, over a 15-year period. We show that innovating companies that divest more produce more and improved patents, and those that divest to create corporate focus also produce more breakthroughs. In doing so, we introduce divestitures as an innovation tool, highlight the importance of the absorptive capacity of a company when discussing innovation, and add nuance to the discussion on external tools for innovation.

Bursts of coalescence within population pedigrees whenever big families occur.

We consider a simple diploid population-genetic model with potentially high variability of offspring numbers among individuals. Specifically, against a backdrop of Wright-Fisher reproduction and no selection, there is an additional probability that a big family occurs, meaning that a pair of individuals has a number of offspring on the order of the population size. We study how the pedigree of the population generated under this model affects the ancestral genetic process of a sample of size two at a single autosomal locus without recombination. Our population model is of the type for which multiple-merger coalescent processes have been described. We prove that the conditional distribution of the pairwise coalescence time given the random pedigree converges to a limit law as the population size tends to infinity. This limit law may or may not be the usual exponential distribution of the Kingman coalescent, depending on the frequency of big families. But because it includes the number and times of big families, it differs from the usual multiple-merger coalescent models. The usual multiple-merger coalescent models are seen as describing the ancestral process marginal to, or averaging over, the pedigree. In the limiting ancestral process conditional on the pedigree, the intervals between big families can be modeled using the Kingman coalescent but each big family causes a discrete jump in the probability of coalescence. Analogous results should hold for larger samples and other population models. We illustrate these results with simulations and additional analysis, highlighting their implications for inference and understanding of multilocus data.

Association of Private Equity Firm Acquisition of Ophthalmology Practices with Medicare Spending and Use of Ophthalmology Services.

PURPOSE: Private equity (PE) firms increasingly are acquiring ophthalmology practices; little is known of their influence on care use and spending. We studied changes in use and Medicare spending after PE acquisition. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. PARTICIPANTS: Seven hundred sixty-two clinicians in 123 practices acquired by PE between 2017 and 2018 and 34 807 clinicians in 20 549 never-acquired practices. METHODS: We analyzed Medicare fee-for-service claims (2012-2019) combined with a novel national database of PE acquisitions of ophthalmology practices using a difference-in-differences method within an event study framework to compare changes after a practice was acquired with changes in practices that were not acquired. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Numbers of beneficiaries seen; intravitreal injections and medications used for injections; and spending on ophthalmologist and optometrist services, ancillary services, and intravitreal injections. RESULTS: Comparing PE-acquired with nonacquired practices showed a 23.92% increase (n = 4.20 beneficiaries; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.73-6.67) in beneficiaries seen per PE optometrist per quarter and no change for ophthalmologists, while spending per beneficiary increased 5.06% ($9.66; 95% CI, -2.82 to 22.14). Spending on clinician services decreased 1.62% (-$2.37; 95% CI, -5.78 to 1.04), with ophthalmologist services increasing 5.46% ($17.70; 95% CI, -2.73 to 38.15) and optometrists decreasing 4.60% (-$5.76; 95% CI, -9.17 to -2.34) per beneficiary per quarter. Ancillary services decreased 7.56% (-$2.19; 95% CI, 4.19 to -0.22). Intravitreal injection costs increased 25.0% ($20.02; 95% CI, -1.38 to 41.41) with the number increasing 5.10% (1.83; 95% CI, -0.1 to 3.80). There was a 74.09% increase (8.38 injections; 95% CI, 0.01-16.74) in ranibizumab and a 12.91% decrease (-3.40 injections; 95% CI, -6.86 to 0.07) in bevacizumab after acquisition. The event study showed consistent and often statistically significant increases in ranibizumab injections and decreases in bevacizumab injections after acquisition. CONCLUSIONS: Although not all results reached statistical significance, this study suggested that PE acquisition of practices showed little or no overall effect on use or total spending, but increased the number of unique patients seen per optometrist and the use of expensive intravitreal injections. FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE(S): Proprietary or commercial disclosure may be found in the Footnotes and Disclosures at the end of this article.

Choice of cooperation strategy under demand updating and altruistic behavior.

The integration of logistics service supply chains to improve the service quality of has become the choice of many logistics integrator. This paper considers two common cooperation modes, namely, enabling cooperation and merger cooperation. Meanwhile, this paper takes demand updating and integrator's altruistic behavior into account, establishes a Stackelberg game model and draws the following key conclusions. First, this paper determines the conditions of cooperation, when provider's profit distribution ratio is in the middle, the integrator and the provider cooperate successfully and adopt the merger strategy. Second, this paper finds that demand updating affects the scope of cooperation. When demand decreases (increases), the scope of cooperation between suppliers and integrator decreases (increases). Finally, when the demand reduction degree is small, the demand updating benefits the integrator's profit. In this situation, integrator has incentive to share updated demand information to provider.

The economic geographies of mergers and acquisitions (M&As).

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are on the rise. Interlocking processes of globalization and financialization have increased their attractiveness and incentivized an upward spiral of M&A activity in recent years. This rise is profoundly spatial, as M&As reshape the geographies of production, consumption and finance, while aggravating uneven power-geometries through the concentration of corporate control. Despite this growth and inherent spatiality, economic geography research into M&As has waned. The aim this article is to demonstrate the value of M&As to economic geographers and highlight avenues for future research. This is achieved by explaining how qualitative and quantitative research into the motivations, outcomes and geographies of M&A activity can provide fresh empirical and conceptual insights surrounding wider geographical debates.

Is state-owned enterprise merging private enterprise "market choice" or "space crowding" ? -Based on the motives of equity transfer of mixed-ownership enterprises.

Many state-owned enterprises have mergers and acquisitions (M&A) with private enterprises, which has caused private enterprises to worry about their living space being squeezed. Based on 572 data records about equity transfers of Chinese listed companies extracted from CSMAR4.0 from 2013 to 2020, this paper categorized ownership structures into three categories: privatization of state-owned enterprises (Category 1), state-owned enterprises merging private enterprises (Category 2), and state-owned enterprises merging state-owned enterprises (Category 3). The categorical regression of ex-ante equity transfer motivation revealed that the motives for Category 1 conformed to the phenomenon of the "pretty girl gets married first" and "embezzlement view." Category In contrast, the motives for Category 2 conformed to the "fiscal revenue view." The categorical regression of ex-post equity transfer motivation showed that all three types significantly improved various efficiencies and represented an optimal allocation of resources. Moreover, it was revealed that the transfer of equity to state-owned enterprises by inefficient private firms in Category 2 also significantly improved enterprise efficiency. Thus, it can be considered as a rational behavior of market selection and never squeezed the space crowding. Further analysis showed that the efficiency improvement is due to the symbiotic development relationship rather than the antagonistic relationship between heterogeneous shareholders. Therefore, it is suggested to initiate market-oriented reform by actively developing ownership mixed-ownership economy and adhering to the "two unwavering" basic economic system.

On the bright side of market concentration in a mixed-oligopoly healthcare industry.

We describe the healthcare industry as a mixed oligopoly, where a public and two private providers compete, and examine the effects of a merger between the two private healthcare providers on prices, quality, and welfare. When the price and (eventually) quality of the public provider are regulated, the cost synergies required for the merger to increase consumer welfare are less significant than in a setting with only profit-maximizing providers. When, instead, the public provider can adjust its policy to the rivals' behavior and maximizes a weighted sum of profits and consumer surplus (i.e., it has 'semi-altruistic' preferences), the merger is consumer surplus increasing if the public provider is sufficiently altruist, in some cases even absent efficiencies. These results suggest that ignoring the role and objectives of the public sector in the healthcare industry may lead agencies to reject mergers that, while would decrease consumer welfare in fully privatized industries, would increase it in mixed oligopolies.

Optimized profit repatriation in multinational enterprises through cross-border change of legal form and international tax management.

This article shows for the first time that the cross-border change of legal form can be used for tax-optimized profit repatriation. By means of a cross-border change of legal form of the foreign EU corporation prior to distribution into another foreign EU corporation with subsequent dividend distribution after the cross-border change of legal form has taken place, the taxation of dividends with withholding tax can be avoided. This study develops and discusses this strategy for the first time and transfers it specifically to U.S. shareholders of European corporations. Moreover, this strategy is relevant in general for all shareholders of European corporations, irrespective of their residence, to get tax-optimized profit repatriation of dividends (retained earnings) and to avoid the problem of treaty shopping, which has been significantly strengthened by the introduction of the ATAD/BEPS principal purpose test (PPT) in all EU Member States. The study extends the state of knowledge in the area of international taxation, international mergers, finance and strategy.

Does target country's climate risk matter in cross-border M&A? The evidence in the presence of geopolitical risk.

The impact of climate risk on the payment method in cross-border M&A remains largely unknown in the literature. Using a large sample of UK outbound cross-border M&A deals in 73 target countries from 2008 to 2020, we find that a UK acquirer is more likely to employ an all-cash offer to signal its confidence in a target's value if the target country faces a higher level of climate risk. This finding is consistent with the confidence signalling theory. Our results also suggest that acquirers are less likely to target vulnerable industries if target countries' climate risk is high. In addition, we document that the presence of geopolitical risk would weaken the association between payment method and climate risk. Our findings are robust to the use of an instrumental variable approach and alternative measures of climate risk.

Mergers and acquisitions: does performance depend on managerial ability?

Companies in difficult financial situations may seek to survive through mergers and acquisitions. Managers must be able to use company resources efficiently to maintain and improve competitiveness and sustainable advantages. Managers' ability to make strategic decisions may determine whether a merger and acquisition is successful. This study aims to reveal the role of the acquirer's managerial ability in mergers and acquisitions based on short- and long-term performance as well as the type of M&A. Two metrics are used to assess short- and long-term performance: the market-to-book ratio (MTBR) as an indicator of operating performance and the buy-and-hold abnormal return (BHAR) as an indicator of stock return performance. The research sample consists of 153 M&A cases conducted by companies registered with the Business Competition Supervisory Commission in Indonesia between 2010 and 2017, and the performance till 2020. We used regression and difference analysis to analyze the data. We find that managerial ability has a positive impact on MTBR operating and BHAR stock performance. This result confirms that the higher ability of the acquirer's manager will ensure a successful M&A in the long run. Investors and potential investors might consider managerial ability in choosing investments in companies after an M&A. This study contributes to the M&A literature by examining the role of MA in the short- and long-term performance of acquiring firms following M&As in Indonesia.

Structural Factors and Racial/Ethnic Inequities in Travel Times to Acute Care Hospitals in the Rural US South, 2007-2018.

Policy Points Policymakers should invest in programs to support rural health systems, with a more targeted focus on spatial accessibility and racial and ethnic equity, not only total supply or nearest facility measures. Health plan network adequacy standards should address spatial access to nearest and second nearest hospital care and incorporate equity standards for Black and Latinx rural communities. Black and Latinx rural residents contend with inequities in spatial access to hospital care, which arise from fundamental structural inequities in spatial allocation of economic opportunity in rural communities of color. Long-term policy solutions including reparations are needed to address these underlying processes. CONTEXT: The growing rate of rural hospital closures elicits concerns about declining access to hospital-based care. Our research objectives were as follows: 1) characterize the change in rural hospital supply in the US South between 2007 and 2018, accounting for health system closures, mergers, and conversions; 2) quantify spatial accessibility (in 2018) for populations most at risk for adverse outcomes following hospital closure-Black and Latinx rural communities; and 3) use multilevel modeling to examine relationships between structural factors and disparities in spatial access to care. METHODS: To calculate spatial access, we estimated the network travel distance and time between the census tract-level population-weighted centroids to the nearest and second nearest operating hospital in the years 2007 and 2018. Thereafter, to describe the demographic and health system characteristics of places in relation to spatial accessibility to hospital-based care in 2018, we estimated three-level (tract, county, state-level) generalized linear models. FINDINGS: We found that 72 (10%) rural counties in the South had ≥1 hospital closure between 2007 and 2018, and nearly half of closure counties (33) lost their last remaining hospital to closure. Net of closures, mergers, and conversions meant hospital supply declined from 783 to 653. Overall, 49.1% of rural tracts experienced worsened spatial access to their nearest hospital, whereas smaller proportions experienced improved (32.4%) or unchanged (18.5%) access between 2007 and 2018. Tracts located within closure counties had longer travel times to the nearest acute care hospital compared with tracts in nonclosure counties. Moreover, rural tracts within Southern states with more concentrated commercial health insurance markets had shorter travel times to access the second nearest hospital. CONCLUSIONS: Rural places affected by rural hospital closures have greater travel burdens for acute care. Across the rural South, racial/ethnic inequities in spatial access to acute care are most pronounced when travel times to the second nearest open acute care hospital are accounted for.

The impact of green mergers and acquisitions on illegal pollution discharge of heavy polluting firms: Mechanism, heterogeneity and spillover effects.

This paper is to discuss the impact of green mergers and acquisitions (GMA) on illegal pollution discharge (ILP). The diurnal difference pollution data of the nearest monitoring station around heavy polluting enterprises are used to measure ILP. Results show that: (1) Compared with polluting firms that have not conducted GMA, GMA can reduce ILP by 2.9%. (2) Large scale, strong industrial correlation and cash payment of GMA is more conducive to controlling ILP. GMA in the same city is easier to inhibit ILP. (3) Impact paths of GMA on ILP mainly include cost effect, technology effect and responsibility effect. GMA aggravates ILP by increasing management costs and risk control risks. GMA inhibits ILP by increasing green innovation, environmental protection investment, social responsibility performance and environmental information disclosure. (4) GMA has a greater inhibition effect on ILP in state-owned firms, technology-intensive firms and eastern firms. (5) The industrial spillover effect of GMA is more obvious than that of the same city. This paper provides implications for curbing ILP from the perspective of GMA.

Big Med's Spread.

Policy Points Hospital executives posit a number of rationales for system mergers which lack any basis in academic evidence. Decades of academic research question whether system combinations confer public benefits. Antitrust authorities need to continue to closely scrutinize these transactions. Recently, mergers of hospital systems that span different geographic markets are on the rise. Economists have alerted policymakers about the potential impacts such cross-market mergers may have on hospital prices. We suggest there are other reasons for concern that scholars have not often confonted. Cross-market mergers may be conducted for purely self-serving reasons of organizational growth that increases executive compensation. Combinations of sellers should have clear advantages to consumers. System executives and their boards should bear the burden of proof. Federal regulators and state attorney generals should be cognizant that rationales for cross-market systems advanced by merging parties are unlikely to be operative or dominant in merger decision making. Policymakers should be careful about passing legislation that encourages hospitals to consolidate. CONTEXT: There is a growing trend of combinations among hospital systems that operate in different geographic markets known as cross-market mergers. Economists have analyzed these broader systems in terms of their anticompetitive behavior and pricing power over insurers. This paper evaluates the benefits advanced by these new hospital systems that speak to a different set of issues not usually studied: increased efficiencies, new capabilities, operating synergies, and addressing health inequities. The paper thus "looks under the hood" of these emerging, cross-market systems to assess what value they might bestow and upon whom. METHODS: The paper examines recently announced cross-market mergers in terms of their supposed benefits, as expressed by the systems' executives as well as by industry consultants. These presumed benefits are then evaluated against existing evidence regarding hospital system outcomes. FINDINGS: Advocates of cross-market hospital mergers cite a host of benefits. Research suggests these benefits are nonexistent. Additional evidence suggests other motives may be at play in the formation of cross-market mergers that have nothing to do with efficiencies, synergies, or community benefits. Instead these mergers may be self-serving efforts by system chief executive officers (CEOs) to boost their compensation. CONCLUSIONS: Cross-market hospital mergers may yield no benefits to the hospitals involved or the communities in which they operate. The boards of hospital systems that engage in these cross-market mergers need to exercise greater diligence over the actions of their CEOs.

Mergers and bank branches: two decades of evidence from the USA.

In recent decades, the US bank market has been exposed to several waves of mergers, resulting in concerns about branch presence and consumer access to financial services. This paper examines the effects of bank mergers on branch density in the period 2000-2020. To do so, we use panel regressions and matching techniques at the census tract level to study the impact of inter- and intrastate mergers before and after the Great Recession of 2007. To generate plausible exogenous variation for mergers, our analysis focuses on transactions involving large entities, and we consider the within-tract variation in exposure to mergers. A comparison of exposed and unexposed tracts shows that in the period under study each merger  reduced branch density by around 3%. Moreover, interstate mergers reduced branch density at the tract level across the whole period but had an expansionary effect on the number of branches at the county level before the crisis. Intrastate mergers, in contrast, had a consolidation effect across the whole period, an impact that was more intense in rural tracts and in tracts where merging entities operated overlapping branch networks. Finally, we show that the reduction of bank branches was stronger in tracts with a relatively higher penetration of broadband Internet services, but we find no evidence that the adoption of FinTech services intensified branch closures.

What can be Expected from Mergers After Deregulation? The Case of the Long-Distance Bus Industry in France.

This study estimates the competitive effects of horizontal mergers in the French long-distance bus industry. We examine the two mergers that followed the 2015 Deregulation Act (the Macron Law); we use an exclusive and exhaustive dataset that covers eight consecutive quarters. We analyze the merger effects by comparing bus links that were affected by mergers with those that were unaffected; we use difference-in-differences estimations. We find that the two mergers are associated with price increases of about 13.5% immediately that then moderate to 5.3%; and with the frequency decreases from - 21.5 to - 25.7%; we observe no effects on load factors. These findings show evidence of short-run anticompetitive effects, while the mergers under study were not scrutinized by the French competition agency, as they were below the notification thresholds.

Capital outflows and the environment: fresh evidence from M&A purchases and greenfield FDI.

We analyze how the mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and greenfield foreign direct investment (GFDI) outflows impact the host countries' air pollution at the sectoral level. Following the recent advent of multinationals from emerging economies, we examine outflows rather than inflows. Evidence indicates that there are important distinctive effects of FDI mode of exit. GFDI outflows benefit the environment in the full sample and developing countries, supporting the reverse-pollution haven hypothesis, and at the industry level in the electrical power industry and building. The positive impact of M&A outflows on the environment is revealed only when data is disaggregated further into the industry level in the transport industry of developed economies and the electrical power industry of developing countries. We find that heterogeneities caused by countries' development levels and the FDI's two exit modes, M&As deteriorate the environment less than GFDI.

Recent Developments at DG Competition: 2021/2022.

The Directorate General for Competition at the European Commission enforces competition law in the areas of antitrust, merger control, and State aid. After providing a general presentation of the role of the Chief Competition Economist's team, this article surveys some of the main developments at the Directorate General for Competition over 2021/2022. In particular, the article reviews the new antitrust "Vertical Block Exemption Regulation" and "Vertical Guidelines", the new "Guidelines on State aid for climate, environmental protection, and energy", and the Veolia/Suez merger.