This paper explains why some firms prefer to pay dividends rather than repurchase shares. When institutional investors are relatively less taxed than individual investors, dividends induce "ownership clientele" effects. Firms paying dividends attract relatively more institutions, which have a...

The author presents a signaling model in which high-quality firms underprice at the initial public offering in order to obtain a higher price at a seasoned offering. The main assumption is that low-quality firms must invest in imitation expenses to appear to be high-quality firms, and that with...

When IPO shares are sold sequentially, later potential investors can learn from the purchasing decisions of earlier investors. This can lead rapidly to "cascades" in which subsequent investors optimally ignore their private information and imitate earlier investors. Although rationing in this...

We review the theory and evidence on IPO activity: why firms go public, why they reward first-day investors with considerable underpricing, and how IPOs perform in the long run. Our perspective is threefold: First, we believe that many IPO phenomena are not stationary. Second, we believe...

Our model assumes that creditors need to expend resources to collect on claims. Consequently, because diffuse creditors suffer from mutual free-riding (<link rid="b13">Holmstrom (1982)</link>), they fare worse than concentrated creditors (e.g., a house bank). The model predicts that measures of debt concentration...

Issuers of initial public offerings (IPOs) can report earnings in excess of cash flows by taking positive accruals. This paper provides evidence that issuers with unusually high accruals in the IPO year experience poor stock return performance in the three years thereafter. IPO issuers in the...

Our paper explores a comprehensive sample of small and large corporate bankruptcies in Arizona and New York from 1995 to 2001. Bankruptcy costs are very heterogeneous and sensitive to the measurement method used. We find that Chapter 7 liquidations appear to be no faster or cheaper (in terms of...