Recent years have witnessed a rapid accumulation of empirical evidence documenting firm dynamics around the IPO date. A particularly striking finding is that operating performance, as measured by Returns on Assets for example, peaks in the fiscal year preceding the offering, worsens on impact at the IPO date, and keeps on declining for a few more years. In this paper, I provide a novel rationalization of this evidence. To this end, I construct a simple dynamic stochastic model of firm behavior in which the decision to go public is modelled explicitly. The model predicts that the operating performance reaches its peak in the period before the offering and experiences a sudden decline at the IPO date. The comparative advantage of my approach is that it produces further implications that are in line with the data. Most importantly, the model predicts that the IPO coincides with an increase in sales and capital expenditures. Consistently with evidence pointed out by the Industrial Organization literature, the firm growth rate is shown to be decreasing in age and size.
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Paper provided by Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business in its series GSIA Working Papers with number
2002-E8.
Length: Date of creation: Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:cmu:gsiawp:1625157792
Contact details of provider: Postal: Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 Web page: http://www.tepper.cmu.edu/
Gian Luca Clementi, 2004.
"IPO's and the Growth of Firms,"
Working Papers
04-23, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Thomas F. Cooley & Vincenzo Quadrini, 1999.
"Financial Markets and Firm Dynamics,"
Working Papers
99-14, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
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