I address why IPO volume, and especially small company IPO volume, has been so depressed for more than a decade. The conventional wisdom is that the main culprits are a combination of heavy-handed regulation, especially the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, a decline in analyst coverage of small...

We examine how political connections impact the process of going public. Specifically, we test how political connections impact the pricing of newly offered shares, the magnitude of underpricing, and the fixed cost of going public. Based on experiences of the new public firms in the Chinese...

We examine whether financial conglomeration enhances efficiency of capital allocation or conflicts of interest, focusing on pricing and allocation of IPO stocks in Japan. Regarding underwriting of IPO stocks, our results are consistent with the bank certification hypothesis. As for IPO...

This article addresses Congress's promise that an exemption for private placements publicly offered to accredited investors, as mandated by Title II of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act), would provide greater access to capital for our nation's businesses. Based on an extensive...

We analyze the optimality of allowing disclosures of different types of information before equity offerings and of alternative rules for private securities litigation, where courts may penalize unduly optimistic disclosures ex post. In our model, firm insiders, with private information about...

We examine how liquidity and return concerns at large mutual funds explain their diminished participation in small IPOs since the late 1990s. Using 5,825 IPOs and portfolio-level information for 37,052 funds, we exploit Russia's 1998 debt default as an exogenous shock to funds' liquidity...

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...

Rating agencies produce ratings used by investors, but obtain most of their revenue from issuers, leading to a conflict of interest. We employ a unique data set on the use of non-rating services, and the associated payments, in India, to test if this conflict affects ratings quality. Agencies...

In April 2012, the JOBS Act was passed to help revitalize the IPO market, especially for small firms. During the year ending March 2014, IPO volume and proportion of small firm issuers was the largest since 2000. Controlling for market conditions, we estimate that the JOBS Act has led to 21...