Because IPO mechanisms determine both the initial trading price and the allocation of newly-listed firms' shares, they have financial and strategic consequences for shareholders. For that reason, it is of interest to analyse the relative advantages and disadvantages of the different procedures...

Based on a sample of 15 European countries, this survey analyses various features of the European IPO (Initial Public Offering) market over the period from 1995 to 2004: listing requirements, IPO-mechanism choices, performance and secondary market liquidity. First, the comparison of national...

This article is centred on the volatility of commodity prices. It presents the instruments offering a protection against volatility and shows how they can be employed. The first section exposes these derivative instruments. It distinguishes them in step with the need they respond and the way...

Different types of markets exist throughout the world but how are they created? In this book, an interdisciplinary team of authors provide an evolutionary vision of how markets are designed and shaped. Drawing on a series of case studies, they show that markets are far from perfect and natural...

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...

Based on high frequency data from eight exchanges and a trade reporting facility for a sample of LSE- and Euronext-listed equities, this article compares global and local liquidity before and after MiFID and investigates how liquidity relates to market fragmentation and internalization. Market...