We study firms that go public through reverse mergers (RMs) versus initial public offerings (IPOs) in China. Using a manually assembled data set, we show that pre-listing RM firms are larger, more profitable, and less politically connected than pre-listing IPO firms. Chinese RM firms also have...

The underpricing of initial public offerings is a well-documented fact of empirical equity market research. Theories explain this underpricing with market imperfections. We study three empirically relevant IPO mechanisms under almost perfect market conditions in the laboratory: a stylized book...