Beware the Winner's Curse

the long version

"In the roaring 1990s, many companies seemed to claim great victories - acquiring another company, obtaining state-of-the-art technology, or hiring a potential CEO savior - only to find that they had made a great mistake. The term "Winner's Curse" was coined by economists to explain an effect commonly observed in auctions." "In this book, G. Anandalingam and Henry C. Lucas, Jr. expand the model of the Winner's Curse to explain how companies like Tyco, MCI-WorldCom, and Bank One overpaid for acquisitions, and how shareholders suffered as a result. They elucidate the disasters that happened during the rush to acquire new technologies and illuminate the reasons that companies that were seemingly pioneers in the dot-com era fell by the wayside."--Jacket.