The Deregulation of the Private Equity Markets and the Decline in IPOs

Michael Ewens, Joan Farre-Mensa

NBER Working Paper No. 26317
Issued in September 2019, Revised in December 2019
NBER Program(s):Corporate Finance, Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

The deregulation of securities laws|in particular the National Securities Markets Improvement Act (NSMIA) of 1996|has increased the supply of private capital to late-stage private startups, which are now able to grow to a size that few private firms used to reach. NSMIA is one of a number of factors that have changed the going-public versus staying-private trade-off, helping bring about a new equilibrium where fewer startups go public, and those that do are older. This new equilibrium does not reflect an IPO market failure. Rather, founders are using their increased bargaining power vis-a-vis investors to stay private longer.

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w26317