Does fairness matter in corporate takeovers?

In interviews with the two head negotiators for a buying and a selling comp any in a Swedish takeover, a fair price was found to play an important role . A stated reason was that the companies wanted to do business in the futur e. To further test the importance of fairness, 88 graduate students of busi ness administration playing the role of buyers were asked to evaluate selli ng prices in fictitious corporate takeovers. The results showed that both s atisfaction with the offered selling prices and willingness to buy were aff ected by information about a fair price. Furthermore, the possibility of do ing business in the future appeared to have some importance for this effect . (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PsycINFO classificati on. 2340 JEL classification: C70; C91; G3.