We study 6,686 IPOs spanning the period 1981-2005 and find that the new issues puzzle disappears in a Fama-French three-factor framework. IPOs do not underperform in the aftermarket on a risk-adjusted basis and do not underperform a matched sample of non-issuers. IPO underperformance is...

We examine the effects on IPO uncertainty of an alternative going-public mechanism - the two-stage IPO, where a firm first gets quoted on the OTC market, and then upgrades to a national exchange where it first issues public equity. We find that a two-stage IPO firm experiences lower underpricing...

Many regulations are based on size thresholds. We develop a model that shows that such regulations distort risk-taking incentives, providing above-threshold firms with greater incentives to take risk and below-threshold firms the opposite. Risk distortion varies nonlinearly as a function of the...

We show theoretically that when Bayesian investors face time-series uncertainty about assets' risk exposures, differences in their priors affect the pricing of risk in the cross-section: different priors for the same asset can generate differences in perceived risk exposures, and thereby...

Many regulations that affect firms and banks in the economy are based on size thresholds. We develop a model that shows that such regulations distort risk-taking incentives, providing above-threshold firms with greater incentives to take risk and below-threshold firms the opposite. Risk...