A firm’s transition from private to public ownership stunts local economic growth because it crowds out competition.

Increased sea level rise projections over the past decade have led to a statistically significant increase in municipal bond yields for exposed areas. The effect is driven primarily by uncertainty if future sea level rise.  

We introduce taxi cab ridership between the New York Fed and the systemic institutions it supervises as a novel proxy for Fed activity. We find that Fed-bank ridership is negatively related to aggregate market returns over the following two weeks. 

Minimum wage increases results in industries relying on minimum wage labor reducing their captial expenditures.

Republicans are more likely to purchase sea level rise exposed properties than Democrats, and this effect appears related to differences in beliefs regarding long-run sea level rise risks.

Unexpectedly severe winter weather, which is arguably exogenous to firm and bank fundamentals, represents a significant cash flow shock for bank-borrowing firms. Borrowers respond to these shocks by drawing on and increasing the size of their credit lines. Banks charge borrowers for this liquidity via increased interest rates and less borrower-friendly loan provisions. 

Lenders conduct active monitoring, such as borrower meetings or site visits, on 20% of loans and demand information at least on a monthly basis for 50% of loans. Both monitoring measures are positively related to the lead arranger's loan share and negatively related to loan maturity, borrower public status, and covenant use. 

Firms treated with reduced regulatory burdens invest more and more efficiently after going public. 

Following the adoption of state laws that increase firing costs, there is an immediate and persistent 30% reduction in both total mergers and acquisitions (M&A) dollar volume and average M&A size as well as an immediate increase in withdrawn deals. 

Marginal increases in IPO proceeds lead to more analyst coverage, institutional shareholders, and stock liquidity throughout the first two years a firm is public.

Twenty-three percent of CEOs use tax-advantaged pre-IPO trusts, and trust use predicts more favorable post-IPO returns. 

Homes exposed to sea level rise (SLR) sell for approximately 7% less than observably equivalent unexposed properties equidistant from the beach. This discount has grown over time and is driven by sophisticated buyers and communities worried about global warming. Consistent with identification of long horizon SLR costs, we find no relation between SLR exposure and rental rates and a 4% discount among properties not projected to be flooded for almost a century. 

Index membership causes small firms to transition away from bank financing in favor of equity offerings. 

Analysts that are allowed to be more involved in the IPO process initiate coverage that is more optimistically biased and less accurate. 

Most SEOs are now announced and issued overnight. Overnight issuers obtain a higher offer price because they experience more favorable pre-offer returns. 

Access to public securities mitigates the bank hold-up problem and reduces loan spreads by increasing a borrower’s bargaining power vis-à-vis a lender. 

Deregulation allowing firms to accelerate public equity issuance is followed by a doubling of reliance on public equity and a transition away from private investments in public equity. This is accompanied by a reduction in equity issuance costs, an increase in investment, and a decrease in leverage. 

Defined contribution pensions make retirement more positively correlated with stock market returns as compared to defined benefits pensions.

Poor financial condition is positively associated with product market cooperation. 

In April 2012, the JOBS Act was passed to help revitalize the IPO market, especially for small firms. During the year ending March 2014, IPO volume and proportion of small firm issuers was the largest since 2000. Controlling for market conditions, we estimate that the JOBS Act has led to 21 additional IPOs annually, a 25% increase over pre-JOBS levels. Firms with high proprietary disclosure costs, such as biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms, increase IPO activity most. These firms are also more likely to take advantage of the Act’s de-risking provisions, allowing firms to file the IPO confidentially while testing-the-waters.