IPO firms with high-powered CEO incentive contracts have lower failure rates in the aftermarket. Economically, an interquartile change in the distribution of CEO pay translates in a reduction of the failure risk probability by approximately 21%. The Pay Gap between the CEO and its subordinate...

This paper investigates the effect of mandatory disclosure requirements for private firms on their decision to go public. Using detailed project-level data for biopharmaceutical firms, we explore the effects of a legal reform---the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA)---which...

This paper examines whether debt retirement at the time of initial public offering (IPO) can stimulate firm growth. Our findings reveal that highly leveraged firms tend to use proceeds of IPOs to repay more existing debt. Then, increased debt capacity and reduced interest burden enable firms to...

During IPO bookbuilding, issuers revise both the offer price and the number of shares (or equivalently, insider retention). These two percentage revisions are of comparable magnitude and are nearly uncorrelated. We show theoretically that revision to offer price and to retention capture...

We empirically examine theories of secured debt. Credit risk and asset volatility increase with secured debt issuance, and the strength of this association is unrelated to contemporaneous investment. Hand-collected data reveals most secured debt is secured on all assets of the firm and rarely...

This paper examines at-the-market (ATM) equity programs as an additional source of financial flexibility. We find that firms with higher market-to-book ratios and greater institutional ownership are more likely to announce an ATM program. Firms using ATM programs are also more likely to issue...

This research considers the strategies on the initial public offering of company equity at the stock exchanges in the imperfect highly volatile global capital markets with the nonlinearities. We provide the IPO definition and compare the initial listing requirements on the various markets. We...

Assuming benevolent managers, the debt-overhang problem suggests that distressed firms generally refrain from issuing equity. In contrast, agency theory predicts that distressed firm managers have strong self-interests to finance even deteriorating projects through equity issuance. This paper...

This paper proposes an explanation for two empirical puzzles surrounding initial public offerings (IPOs). Firstly, it is well documented that IPO underpricing increases during quot;hot issuequot; periods. Secondly, venture capital (VC) backed IPOs are less underpriced than non venture capital...

This paper tests a new hypothesis that bank managers issue public debt, at least in part, to convey positive, private information and refrain from issuance to hide negative, private information. This positive selection hypothesis is tested against the traditional adverse selection hypothesis. We...