Bank loans are more available and cheaper for new and small businesses in the US in areas with highly concentrated banks than in areas with highly competitive banks. We explain this fact by analyzing banks' decisions to screen risky projects and their subsequent competition in loan provisions....

We explain why underpricing in IPOs can be large in magnitude and clustered, using a signalling model where firms have private information about their qualities (high or low). A novel feature is that a firm, if perceived by the market as high quality, benefits from the industry's publicity which...