We examine how societal secrecy affects the underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs). Using a large sample of 18,304 IPOs across 38 countries, we find robust evidence that IPO underpricing is positively related to societal secrecy. Additional analyses reveal that investor protection,...

We find a negative relation between democracy and initial public offering (IPO) underpricing for a sample of 23,050 IPOs across 45 countries. The effect of democracy on underpricing is weaker for IPOs audited by Big 4 auditing firms, backed by venture capital firms, and with better disclosure...

Using a sample of 4,892 IPOs in the United States from 1990 to 2019, we establish that the level of social capital in the county of the IPO firm’s headquarters is negatively associated with the level of IPO underpricing. The relation holds for a range of robustness tests, including those...