This paper examines the debt underwriting relationship for banks. Publicly-traded investment and commercial banks (“banks”) are unique as they are the only firms capable of underwriting their own securities. In nearly 30% of their debt issuances, banks hire another underwriter and do so...

We present a model in which informed experts intermediate in the market for going public by acquiring private firms and reselling their shares to public investors. Because information incorporated by the public market generates pricing risk for experts, the acquisition prices they pay act as...