Foreign acquisitions in Italy and their impact on company performances.

The Thesis investigates the effects of foreign ownership on the performance of acquisition's targets. Using Italian manufacturing firm-level data, it is analysed the impact of take-overs by implementing an appropriate matching propensity score procedure in order to evaluate the average effects of the acquisition on treated (the acquired firm) comparing the differences in the outcome before and after the operation with the outcome before and after this operation for a control group. This control group is composed of firms that have not been taken over, but closest to the target ones.