Are IPOs Still a Puzzle? A Survey of the Empirical Evidence from Europe

This survey aims at appraising the empirical research conducted on the European IPO markets as of the current date, and at determining to what extent IPO theories explain European IPO patterns. To that end, we first describe the going public process in Europe, its recent developments and its specificities in comparison with the organisation of American primary markets. Second, we review the empirical evidence on initial underpricing, long-term IPO performance and IPO-mechanism efficiency, based on European data, and we put it in perspective with the IPO theoretical literature.