The structure of a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) provides a special role for its sponsors. We show that while few characteristics can explain SPACs' returns, sponsors' connections and network, measured by their centrality, explain a large portion of return variation in the...

The regulator plays an active role in the IPO process via its pre-IPO communications with firms, writing 3.8 comment letters per company. To evaluate the regulator's input, we analyze these communications between the SEC and firms using LDA-analysis and KL-divergence. Main topics of SEC concerns...