"At least 25 countries have used IPO auctions, but most have since abandoned them. We argue that this is because auctions, being indirect mechanisms, require a level of sophistication above that of many investors. Through suitably calibrated examples, we show that even sophisticated investors...

"We show that long run consumption risk models imply that the covariance matrix of the logarithm of price to dividend (P/D) ratios of stocks has a strict factor structure. Factor analysis of the P/D ratios of 25 portfolios formed by sorting stocks based on their size and book to market ratio...

"Whereas Poterba and Summers (1995) find that firms use hurdle rates that are unrelated to their CAPM betas, Graham and Harvey (2001) find that 74% of their survey firms use the CAPM for capital budgeting. We provide an explanation for these two apparently contradictory conclusions. We find that...