Heterogeneous Beliefs, IPO Valuation, and the Economic Role of the Underwriter in IPOs
实证分析承销商在IPO中的经济角色，发现高声誉承销商支持的IPO定价更高但偏离内在价值更远，支持市场力量假说而非认证假说。
We empirically analyze the economic role of the underwriter in initial public offerings (IPOs), distinguishing between the “certification” and “market power” hypotheses. We find that equity in high‐reputation underwriter backed IPOs is priced higher and further away from intrinsic value than that in low‐reputation underwriter backed IPOs. Our results are robust to controlling for the endogenous selection of firms to take public by underwriters. Overall, our results support the market power hypothesis and reject the certification hypothesis, indicating that the role of underwriters is to obtain the highest possible valuation for the IPOs that they back rather than to price the equity close to intrinsic value.