The financial crisis provides a natural experiment for testing theoretical predictions of the equity underwriter’s role following an initial public offering. Clients of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Wachovia saw their stock prices fall almost 5 percent, on average, on the...

We model the impact of public and private ownership structures on firms' incentives to invest in innovative projects. We show that it is optimal to go public when exploiting existing ideas and optimal to go private when exploring new ideas. This result derives from the fact that private firms...

From 1990 to 2011, the share of the world's initial public offering (IPO) activity outside the U.S. increased with financial globalization. In the 1990s, when financial globalization was lower, there were 0.37 U.S. IPOs for each non-U.S. IPO compared to only 0.12 in the 2000s. Consistent with...

During the past two decades, there has been a dramatic change in IPO activity around the world. Though vibrant IPO activity, attributed to better institutions and governance, used to be a strength of the U.S., it no longer is. IPO activity in the U.S. has fallen compared to the rest of the world...

The financial crisis provides a natural experiment for testing theoretical predictions of the equity underwriter's role following an initial public offering. Clients of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Wachovia saw their stock prices fall almost 5 percent, on average, on the day...

This paper empirically analyzes the short run performance of Tunisian initial public offerings (IPO). It sheds light on the determinants of IPO's in a context of a frontier market characterized by high information asymmetry, low information efficiency, thin trading and the presence of...

The paper examines the determinants of stabilization and its impact on the aftermarket prices. We use a unique dataset to relax several assumptions in the stabilization literature. We find that underwriters support IPO prices shortly after listing, particularly in cold markets and when demand is...

We examine the privatization process of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the largest bank in the world by market capitalization, and its dual IPOs in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Stock exchanges in 2006. The Chinese government retains majority equity ownership of ICBC while...

Notwithstanding the considerable media and regulatory attention private equity receives, there continues to be substantial confusion about what private equity does and whether this creates value. Calls for more aggressive regulation of the industry reflect a skeptical view of private equity as...

Special Purpose Acquisition Corporations (SPACs) are large blank check companies formed to acquire operating assets or an existing business. They provide public investors with a private equity style investment with the security of having the majority of their funds returned if an acceptable...