We explain the returns obtained on venture capital (VC) investments in all VC backed companies going public in the U.S. between 2003 and 2017. Using a unique data set of 1,921 investor-IPO returns, we show that later investments obtain higher returns, even after controlling for observed and...

We examine the relation between litigation risk and IPO underpricing and test two aspects of the litigation-risk hypothesis: (1) firms with higher litigation risk underprice their IPOs by a greater amount as a form of insurance (insurance effect) and (2) higher underpricing lowers expected...

IPO firms with high-powered CEO incentive contracts have lower failure rates in the aftermarket. Economically, an interquartile change in the distribution of CEO pay translates in a reduction of the failure risk probability by approximately 21%. The Pay Gap between the CEO and its subordinate...

We provide a characterization of comparative weak risk aversion and comparative RDEU risk aversion for RDEU preferences and, in particular, we correct a claim made by Quiggin (1993) regarding comparative RDEU risk aversion. We then apply the analysis of comparative risk aversion to a problem of...

We model the risk of setting the required fixed-offer price in an IPO given initial uncertainty about value, as well as costs of over and underpricing. Assuming that the goal of issuers in bookbuilt IPOs is to maximize net offering proceeds, our analysis indicates that their optimal strategy is...

We consider the importance of legal opportunism as an explanation for observed litigation following a large sample of initial public offerings (IPOs). We characterize legal opportunism as litigation based on the potential to recover losses after negative stock price developments rather than the...

Using a large sample of U.S. firms during 1987–2011, we find robust evidence that the issuance of seasoned equity is associated with abnormally high future stock price crash risk. The association between seasoned equity offerings and crash risk is stronger among offerings that involve the sale...

This paper examines how changes in firms’ risk disclosures affect a key market measure of risk. Our proxy for changes in risk disclosures is the addition and removal of individual risk factors to firms’ 10-K annual filings, identified via textual analysis of the risk factors section. Our...

Using the records of several leading 19th century issuing houses, this paper analyses the transformation of underwriting practices in London's primary sovereign bond market from 1870 to 1914. It shows how underwriting risk developed from being a liability, which market intermediaries sought to...

Despite the sometimes intensive media coverage and exuberant storytelling around the industry, venture capital (VC) investors tend to operate in highly opaque markets. On this premise, this work contributes to the literature via a hand-collected dataset of about 3,600 EIF-backed VC investments...