This paper explores whether social ties, proxied by Facebook friendship links, can explain why the number and value of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are greater within countries than between countries. We find that social ties are positively correlated with the number and value of M&As. We also demonstrate that the home bias in M&As is greatly reduced once we control for the differences in social ties between and within countries. We further find that social ties particularly facilitate M&As when the level of corruption is high, press freedom is limited in the target country, and there are more cultural differences between the acquirer and target countries.

本文探讨了以 Facebook 友谊链接为代表的社会关系能否解释为什么国家内部并购 (M&A) 的数量和价值高于国家之间。我们发现，社会关系与并购的数量和价值呈正相关。我们还证明，一旦我们控制了国家之间和国家内部的社会联系差异，并购中的本土偏见就会大大减少。我们进一步发现，当腐败程度高、目标国家的新闻自由受到限制、收购方和目标国家之间存在更多的文化差异时，社会关系特别有利于并购。