Purpose – The paper aims to examine the practical importance of the finding of Mayers and Smith, that underinvestment is a problem when debt exposed to bankruptcy is part of the financial structure. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines critically the assumptions underlying the...

Previous studies have shown that the pattern of first day returns to initialpublic offerings is consistent with the hypotheses of underpricing and price support. We examine two different periods, 1975–1984 and 1996–2002, and find that in each case the measures of price support and...

Purpose – The paper aims to examine the practical importance of the finding of Mayers and Smith, that underinvestment is a problem when debt exposed to bankruptcy is part of the financial structure. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines critically the assumptions underlying the...