This study documents corporate culture at the time of IPO and the relationship between corporate culture at the time of IPO and firm financial performance. Based on a sample of 1,157 US firms that went public between 1996 and 2011 and performance information through 2016, the data provide strong...

This paper reassesses two conflicting hypotheses on the valuation impacts of private placements of equity (PPEs), the monitoring/certification hypothesis and the managerial entrenchment hypothesis, by focusing on the shareholder approval, active buyer, and premium pricing features of PPEs. We...

This paper examines the effects of improvement in creditors' rights protection on firms' financing choices and securities issuance. To address these issues, I exploit exogenous variation in creditors' rights protection induced by the staggered adoption of anti-recharacterization laws by some...

We investigate optimal capital structure and debt maturity policies in the presence of fixed issuance costs. We identify the global-optimal policy that generates the highest values of equity across all states of nature consistent with limited liability. The optimal policy without commitment...

The IPO market provides an interesting setting for examining the behavior of private equity (PE) sponsors due to the higher information asymmetries it involves compared to other exit strategies. Contrary to the hypothesis that PE sponsors are more professional than other insiders in using the...

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...

The recent decline in IPO activity can be explained by the small firms' increasing preference for being acquired rather than growing independently. This paper sheds light on this explanation by focusing on the nature of the firms facing this decision and their potential merger synergies. First,...

Using a sample of 1,593 US firms that go public between 1990 and 2007, we find that VC-backed IPOs experience less financial distress risk post-offering than do comparable non-VC-backed IPOs. After controlling for endogeneity, we find this is related to the screening done by VC-investors, who...

This study documents corporate culture at the time of IPO and the relationship between corporate culture at the time of IPO and firms' financial performance. Based on a sample of 1,355 US firms that went public between 1996 and 2011 and performance information to 2016, the data indicate strong...

This study examines the association between real earnings management, governance attributes, and IPO failure risk. Using a sample of 4174 IPOs firms that went public over the period of 1998-2011, we find evidence that real earnings management and governance attributes are associated with IPO...