Lower underpricing amongst venture-backed IPOs has been attributed to a certification role for venture capitalists. We argue that differences in underpricing per se are uninformative and possibly misleading when not controlling for differences in entrepreneurs` incentives to control...

We document widespread changes to the historical I/B/E/S analyst stock recommendations database. Across seven I/B/E/S downloads, obtained between 2000 and 2007, we find that between 6,580 (1.6%) and 97,582 (21.7%) of matched observations are different from one download to the next. The changes...

We test recent theories of when companies go public which predict that 1) more companies will go public when outside valuations are high or have increased, 2) companies prefer going public when uncertainty about their future profitability is high, and 3) firms whose controlling shareholders...

We examine whether irrational behavior among small (retail) investors drives post-IPO prices. We use prices from the grey market (the when-issued market that precedes European IPOs) to proxy for small investors' valuations. High grey market prices (indicating overoptimism) are a very good...

We investigate whether analyst behavior influenced banks' likelihood of winning underwriting mandates for a sample of 16,625 U.S. debt and equity offerings in 1993-2002. We control for the strength of the issuer's investment banking relationships with potential competitors for the mandate, prior...

We model an IPO company's optimal response to the presence of sentiment investors. "Regular" investors are allocated stock that they subsequently sell to sentiment investors. Because sentiment demand may disappear prematurely, carrying IPO stock in inventory is risky, so for regulars to break...

By 1999, close to 80% of non-U.S. IPOs were marketed using bookbuilding methods. We study whether the recent introduction of this technology by U.S. banks and their inclusion in non-U.S. IPO syndicates has promoted efficiency in primary equity markets. We analyze both direct and indirect costs...

We provide evidence that firms attempting IPOs condition offer terms and the decision whether to carry through with an offering on the experience of their primary market contemporaries. Moreover, while initial returns and IPO volume are positively correlated in the aggregate, the correlation is...