Using a comprehensive database of headlines about individual companies, I examine monthly returns following public news. I compare them to stocks with similar returns, but no identifiable public news. There is a di#erence between the two sets. I find strong drift after bad news. Investors seem to react slowly to this information. I also find reversal after extreme price movements unaccompanied by public news. The separate patterns appear even after adjustments for risk exposure and other e#ects. They are, however, mainly seen in smaller, more illiquid stocks. These findings support some integrated theories of investor over- and underreaction.

Eric Sirri, Andrei Shleifer, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. We acknowledge

schools of the University of Oklahoma. I am very grateful to participants in these seminars and classes for their specific comments and recommendations. Please address correspondence to:

Evidence from Successful IPOs ABSTRACT: Venture capitalist (VC) reputation is a valuable trait, which yields important competitive benefits. Yet a generally accepted measure is lacking. To address this need, we investigate the relation of alternative VC reputation measures to especially successful venture investments, namely IPOs and post-IPO long-run firm performance. Post-IPO firm performance is measured by three well known standards: industry-adjusted operating performance, marketto-book ratio, and long-run listing survival. We find that a VC’s market share of VC-backed IPOs has the strongest and most consistent positive association with these post-IPO long-run performance metrics and with the frequency with which a VC’s portfolio firms subsequently successfully go public. We also explore the relation between VC reputation and private equity networks, IPO demand, post-IPO VC involvement and corporate governance. We find that more reputable VCs excel on all these dimensions, which helps explain why firms backed by more reputable VCs have greater IPO success and better post-IPO performance.

Conference for helpful suggestions on an earlier version of the paper. THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF FLEXIBILITY

We review the theory and evidence on venture capital (VC) and other private equity: why professional private equity exists, what private equity managers do with their portfolio companies, what returns they earn, who earns more and why, what determines the design of contracts signed between (i) private equity managers and their portfolio companies and (ii) private equity managers and their investors (limited partners), and how/whether these contractual designs affect outcomes. Findings highlight the importance of private ownership, and information asymmetry and illiquidity associated with it, as a key explanatory factor of what makes private equity different from other asset classes.

Abstract not found

acknowledge research funding from the Institut de Finance Mathematique de Montreal (IFM 2) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). We thank Aija Groza, Anna Kaolina, and Charles Martineau for excellent research assistance. We remain solely responsible for any remaining errors. Speed and consequences of venture capitalist post-IPO exit We examine the determinants of the speed of venture capitalist post-IPO exit decision and its influence on firm value. We hypothesize that the speed of VC exit will be influenced by founder ownership, which both impedes liquidity of a firm’s stock and significantly influences post-exit firm value. Our results suggest that this is indeed the case. In particular, we find a concave relationship between founder ownership and the speed of venture capitalist exit and a convex relationship between founder ownership and changes in firm value around VC exit. The observed relationships are robust to alternative econometric specifications and to the presence of non-founder blockholders. Speed and consequences of venture capitalist post-IPO exit 1.

acknowledge the help of Benjamin Aleman and Antonio Bassols Quiroz who assisted in putting together the database. The analyses and conclusions set forth are those of the authors and not necessarily indicate concurrence of the institutions the authors are affiliated to. * Harvard University and Protego. Private Equity in Mexico 2 1.

Although the commercialization of research has become an increasingly important issue for academics as well as policy makers, much less is known about spinning off firms as a tool for technology transfer from universities and research organizations, especially from a process perspective. Drawing on case study as well as a European wide survey, this paper arrives at an empirically grounded conceptual framework of the spin off process. Providing a life cycle model, we analyzed which financial and knowledge resources are most prevalent during different distinct phases of the spin off process. Policy implications for facilitating the spin off process are formulated. Key words: technology transfer; spin-off process; life cycle model- 1- 1