IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/96649.html

Disclosure Regulation, Intangible Capital and the Disappearance of Public Firms

Author

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, the number of listed firms in the U.S. has halved, and their public disclosure has become opaquer. To explain these trends, we develop a general equilibrium model where the choices of going public or private and the transparency of voluntary disclosure are characterized analytically. In the equilibrium, the stock market with directed search and the private equity market with random search co-exist. According to the estimation, stricter disclosure regulation and increased intangible capital share are the key drivers of the observed patterns. Lastly, we characterize a policymaker’s trade-off between welfare and productivity and analyze the optimal policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara Casella & Hanbaek Lee & Sergio Villalvazo, 2023. "Disclosure Regulation, Intangible Capital and the Disappearance of Public Firms," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-050, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:96649
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2023.050
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2023050pap.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2023.050?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dambra, Michael & Field, Laura Casares & Gustafson, Matthew T., 2015. "The JOBS Act and IPO volume: Evidence that disclosure costs affect the IPO decision," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 121-143.
    2. Cyrus Aghamolla & Richard T. Thakor, 2022. "Do Mandatory Disclosure Requirements for Private Firms Increase the Propensity of Going Public?," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 60(3), pages 755-804, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hepfer, Bradford F. & Judd, Hannah W. & Rice, Sarah C., 2025. "Signaling innovation: The nontax benefits of claiming R&D tax credits," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1).
    2. Yost, Benjamin P., 2023. "Do tax-based proprietary costs discourage public listing?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2).
    3. Fred E. Huibers, 2020. "Towards an Optimal IPO Mechanism," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-14, June.
    4. Chen, Yangyang & Duong, Huu Nhan & Goyal, Abhinav & Veeraraghavan, Madhu, 2023. "Social capital and the pricing of initial public offerings," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Ole-Kristian Hope & Danqi Hu & Hai Lu, 2016. "The benefits of specific risk-factor disclosures," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 1005-1045, December.
    6. Aghanya, Daniel & Agarwal, Vineet & Poshakwale, Sunil, 2020. "Market in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), stock price informativeness and liquidity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    7. Greene, Daniel, 2016. "The wealth of private firm owners following reverse mergers," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 56-75.
    8. Dr. Aniruddha DAS & Dr. Amith Vikram MEGARAVALLI & Dr. A. Sarath BABU, 2023. "What drives the oversubscription of IPO’s: evidence from Indian Stock Market," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(4(637), W), pages 47-62, Winter.
    9. Smadar Siev, 2021. "The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Poorer: Social Media and the Post-IPO Behavior of Investors in Biotechnology Firms: The Relationship with Twitter Volume," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-17, September.
    10. Chu-hsuan Chang & Woan-lih Liang & Yanzhi Wang, 2024. "Trade secret laws and initial public offering underpricing," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 325-353, July.
    11. Zhao, Jing & Huang, Jingchang & Dou, Huan, 2023. "Internet searching and investment sensitivity to stock price: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    12. Lin Qiu & Joshua Ronen, 2025. "Anticipatory effects of accounting standards: the lease exposure draft," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 1543-1591, June.
    13. Dambra, Michael & Field, Laura Casares & Gustafson, Matthew T. & Pisciotta, Kevin, 2018. "The consequences to analyst involvement in the IPO process: Evidence surrounding the JOBS Act," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 302-330.
    14. Bergbrant, Mikael C. & Bradley, Daniel & Hunter, Delroy M., 2017. "Does bank loan supply affect the supply of equity capital? Evidence from new share issuance and withdrawal," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 32-45.
    15. Gamble, Edward & Caton, Gary & Aujogue, Kelig & Lee, Yen Teik, 2020. "Problems with crisis intervention: When the government wants to restrain big banks but punishes small businesses instead," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    16. Li, Zhaomin & Zhou, Minting & Xu, Hanwen & Jia, Chunchun, 2025. "Effect of new subway openings on corporate employee compensation: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    17. repec:osf:socarx:3zumb_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Boeh, Kevin K. & Dunbar, Craig G., 2021. "Raising capital after IPO withdrawal," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    19. Mary J. Benner & Todd Zenger, 2016. "The Lemons Problem in Markets for Strategy," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 1(2), pages 71-89, June.
    20. Duong, Huu Nhan & Goyal, Abhinav & Zolotoy, Leon, 2024. "Anti-collusion leniency legislations and IPO activity: Worldwide evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    21. Matthias Breuer, 2025. "Correction to “How Does Financial‐Reporting Regulation Affect Industry‐Wide Resource Allocation?”," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 63(2), pages 1031-1055, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:96649. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.