We explore a firm's choice between public and private debt in a model where the firm's financing source affects its product market behavior. Debt can promote excessively risky product market strategies, but lender control through restrictive covenants - a characteristic of private debt - can...

Previous studies have found that the share of equity in total new issues (S) is negatively correlated with future equity market returns (in-sample). Researchers have interpreted this finding as evidence that managers are able to predict the systematic component of their stock returns and to...

We investigate investment bank gross spreads for Hong Kong IPOs during 1991-2000 and find pronounced clustering - nearly 94 percent have spreads of exactly 2.5 percent. This clustering is invariant to issue size and decreases through time. We find that SEO spreads cluster as well - at 2.0...

Using several different methodologies, we quantify the statistical robustness of variables used in prior research to explain initial IPO returns. We establish a parsimonious list of robust variables and evaluate their implications for different theories of IPO underpricing and clustering....

We study the relation between access to finance and productivity. Our contribution to the literature is a clean identification of a causal effect of access to finance on productivity. Specifically, we exploit an exogenous shift in demand for a product to expose how producers adapt their...

We use venture-backed initial public offerings (IPOs) to identify and examine the comparative advantage of inexperienced venture capitalists. We argue that, vis-a-vis more established counterparts, younger venture capital firms have a comparative advantage at producing soft information about...

Mutual funds whose managers are in the same educational network as the firm's CEO are more likely to vote against shareholder-initiated proposals to limit executive compensation than out-of-network funds. This voting propensity is stronger when voting among the funds in a family is not...

When local media report news about local companies, they use fewer negative words compared to the same media reporting about non-local companies. We document that one reason for this positive slant is due to the firms' local media advertising expenditures. Abnormal positive local media slant...

Using a sample of municipal bond offerings, I find that ldquo;localrdquo; investment banks have substantial comparative and absolute advantages over nonlocal counterparts--locals charge lower fees and sell bonds at lower yields. Local investment banks' strongest comparative advantage is at...

We exploit unique features of the U.S. municipal bond underwriting market to assess how political integrity affects primary financial market outcomes. We show that state corruption and political connections have strong effects on several aspects of municipal bond sales and underwriting....