The SEC heavily regulates the traditional initial public offering. Those regulatory burdens fuel interest in alternative paths for private companies to go public. The SEC’s response to the emergence of alternatives, most recently SPACs and direct listings, has been to suppress them by imposing...

The SEC adopted new rules in 2005 governing registered public offerings in the United States. Few, if any, of the rules make sense if we start from a presumption that investors are rational and are able to discount properly for any information they receive during the public offering process. In...

Under Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933, firms making public offerings of securities are strictly liable to investors for any material misstatements in the registration statements that accompany those offers. This strict liability regime is premised on the notion that issuers are best...