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Where Have All the IPOs Gone

TLDR
In this article, the authors propose an alternative explanation for the decline in the number of initial public offerings in the United States: the advantages of selling out to a larger organization, which can speed a product to market and realize economies of scope, have increased relative to the benefits of operating as an independent firm.
Abstract
During 1980–2000, an average of 310 companies per year went public in the United States. Since 2000, the average has been only 99 initial public offerings (IPOs) per year, with the drop especially precipitous among small firms. Many have blamed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the 2003 Global Settlement’s effects on analyst coverage for the decline in IPO activity. We find very little support for the conventional wisdom, and we offer an alternative explanation. Our economies of scope hypothesis posits that the advantages of selling out to a larger organization, which can speed a product to market and realize economies of scope, have increased relative to the benefits of operating as an independent firm.

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Persistent Operating Losses and Corporate Financial Policies

TL;DR: This paper found that firms with negative operating cash flows account for more than half of the rise in average cash balances over a sample period, with average cash holdings increasing by 615% for negative cash flow firms vs. 95% for positive cash flow ones.
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How much do top management teams matter in founder-led firms?

TL;DR: It is found that although team structure has a significant impact on the performance of nonfounder‐led firms, it has little to no effect on the operating performance of founder‐ led firms, suggesting that founder chief executive officers (CEOs) may exert too much control.
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Declining propensity to pay? A re-examination of the lifecycle theory

TL;DR: This article showed that the declining propensity to pay is a function of the changing composition of firms over time and not a declining propensity in individual firms themselves, and that the decade a firm went public is also a major determinant of its initial payout policy.
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Impact of market-based finance on SMEs failure

TL;DR: In this article, the authors empirically test this hypothesis and report that listed SMEs enjoy a lower likelihood of financial distress and bankruptcy than their unlisted counterparts, and support the view that stock exchange listing can relieve SMEs from external financing constraints, thus reducing their failure likelihood.
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Are U.S. Industries Becoming More Concentrated

TL;DR: The authors found that firms in industries with the largest decline in the number of publicly-traded firms have higher profit margins and abnormal stock returns, and enjoyed better investment opportunities through M&A deals.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

The structure and governance of venture-capital organizations

TL;DR: The authors describes and analyzes the structure of VC organizations, focusing on the relationship between investors and venture capitalists and between venture-capital firms and the ventures in which they invest, and contrasts VC organizations with large, publicly traded corporations and with leveraged buyout organizations.
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Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used a disaggregated approach to study the volatility of common stocks at the market, industry, and firm levels and found that over the period from 1962 to 1997 there has been a noticeable increase in firm-level volatility relative to market volatility.
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Do Brokerage Analysts' Recommendations Have Investment Value?

Kent L. Womack
- 01 Mar 1996 - 
TL;DR: In this article, an analysis of new buy and sell recommendations of stocks by security analysts at major U.S. brokerage firms shows significant, systematic discrepancies between pre-recommendation prices and eventual values.
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Venture capitalists and the decision to go public

TL;DR: This article examined the timing of initial public offerings and private financings by venture capitalists and found that seasoned VCs are particularly proficient at taking companies public near market peaks, and that these companies go public when equity valuations are high and employ private finance when values are lower.