Capital Market Financing, Firm Growth, Firm Size Distribution

Which firms issue equity and debt in domestic and international markets and what happens to their assets, sales, and number of employees? To answer these questions, we assemble a new dataset on firm-level capital raising activity during 1991-2011, which we match with firm attributes for 45,527 listed firms from 51 economies during 2003-2011. We find that only a few of the largest firms issue securities in the median country. Firms issuing bonds are even larger than those issuing equity. Moreover, issuers grow much faster than non-issuers, particularly (a) during the year of issuance, (b) among smaller and younger firms, and (c) in countries with market-based financial systems. Furthermore, the firm size distribution (FSD) of issuers behaves differently from that of non-issuers. Among issuers, smaller firms grow faster than larger ones, tightening their FSD; but among non-issuers, larger firms grow faster than smaller ones, widening their FSD.