We draw on Merton (1987) to develop predictions for the benefits of voluntary disclosures made by firms pursuing an initial public offering (IPO) prior to when they begin to provide regulated financial information via their IPO prospectus. We find that voluntarily issuing press releases and...

This study assesses whether the accrual-generating process is adequately described by a linear model with respect to a range of underlying determinants examined by prior literature. We document substantial departures from linearity across the distributions of accrual determinants, including...

Following a 2008 rule change by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission designed to simplify and expand smaller firms’ abilities to raise public equity, small firms increasingly issue public equity via confidentially-marketed public offerings (CMPOs). CMPOs pair confidential pre-offering...

We examine the prevalence and determinants of CEOs' use of tax-advantaged trusts prior to their firm's IPO. Twenty-three percent of CEOs use tax-advantaged pre-IPO trusts, and share transfers into tax-advantaged trusts are positively associated with CEO equity wealth, estate taxes, and dynastic...

We examine how the regulatory burdens affect the investment and innovation of newly public firms. To do so, we exploit the Jumpstart our Business Start-up (JOBS) Act, which eliminates certain disclosure, auditing, and governance requirements for a subset of newly public firms. Firms treated with...

In April 2012, the JOBS Act was passed to help revitalize the IPO market, especially for small firms. During the year ending March 2014, IPO volume and proportion of small firm issuers was the largest since 2000. Controlling for market conditions, we estimate that the JOBS Act has led to 21...