Geopolitical risk and M&A: The role of national governance institutions

Examining nineteen emerging economies from 1990 to 2018, we identify a positive effect of geopolit-ical risk on mergers and acquisition (M&A) deal frequency, driven mainly by an increase in domestic M&A. However, we find a negative effect of geopolitical risk on the M&A deal size, highlighting the deadweight cost created by the geopolitical risk. The quality of national governance moderates the deterring effect of geopolitical risk.(c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).