Our study provides evidence on the share price reactions to the announcement of equity issues in Germany, where capital market is characterized by institutional features distinct from the U.S. market. German seasoned equity issues yield a positive market reaction which contrasts to the...

We analyze a publicly-traded firm's decision to stay public or go private when managerial autonomy from shareholder intervention affects the supply of productive inputs by management. We show that both the advantage and the disadvantage of public ownership relative to private ownership lie in...

Using a unique, hand-collected database of all venture- backed firms listed on Germany's Neuer Markt, we analyze the history of venture capital financing of these firms before the IPO and the behavior of venture capitalists at the IPO. We can detect significant differences in the behavior and...

To resolve the IPO underpricing puzzle it is essential to analyze who knows what when during the issuing process. In Germany, broker-dealers make a market in IPOs during the subscription period. We examine these pre-issue prices and find that they are highly informative. They are closer to the...

Over the past two decades, private equity has contributed to a shrinking of the U.S. stock market. We develop a political economy model of private equity activity to study the wider economic consequences of this trend. We show that private and social incentives to delist firms from the stock...

Venture capital (VC) and growth are examined both empirically and theoretically. Empirically, VC-backed startups have higher early growth rates and initial patent quality than non-VC-backed ones. VC backing increases a startup's likelihood of reaching the right tails of the firm size and...

This paper uses a unique sample of 175 Spanish equity offerings from 1985 to 2002 to test who benefits from IPO underpricing and why. Institutions receive nearly 75% of the profits in underpriced issues, while they have to bear only 56% of the losses in overpriced offerings. Superior information...

We investigate the competitive landscape of underwriting services in the Eurobond market including the choice of underwriter and underwriter gross spread. We find a significant but declining association between the home market of the Eurobond’s currency of denomination and that of the lead...

This paper analyzes a comprehensive data set of 160 non venture-backed, 79 venture-backed and 61 bridge financed companies going public at Germany's Neuer Markt between March 1997 and March 2002. I examine whether these three types of issues differ with regard to issuer characteristics, balance...

We characterize optimal IPO design in the distinct adverse selection problems: one affecting the IPO stage and one arising in the after-market. Allocating shares to an investor with superior information in the after-market depresses the share's value to less informed investors. However, because...