We examine Japan's 1997 introduction of book building as an alternative to a previously required hybrid auction method. Despite higher cost for some issuers, all issuers in Japan now select book building. Book building enables more accurate valuation of firms, but gains from accurate valuation are partly redistributive. Thus book building can drive auction-method offerings from the market even if it yields no aggregate benefit. Compared to the auction regime, book building reduces issue costs for large issuers. Auctioning is less costly for small issuers, but appears to foreclose some small firms from issuing. The aggregate costs of book building and auctioning are similar.

We examine Japan's 1997 introduction of book building as an alternative to a previously required hybrid auction method. Despite higher cost for some issuers, all issuers in Japan now select book building. Book building enables more accurate valuation of firms, but gains from accurate valuation are partly redistributive. Thus book building can drive auction-method offerings from the market even if it yields no aggregate benefit. Compared to the auction regime, book building reduces issue costs for large issuers. Auctioning is less costly for small issuers, but appears to foreclose some small firms from issuing. The aggregate costs of book building and auctioning are similar.

We document discretionary underpricing and partial adjustment of IPO prices in the public offer tranche of Japan's hybrid auction regime, in which investor information differences are not important, there are no roadshows, preferential allocations are negligible, institutional investing is low, and the public offer tranche cannot fail. The magnitude and variation of underpricing in our sample, which spans relatively hot and cold markets, are similar to those reported for US IPOs. The evidence is most consistent with underpricing arising from an implicit contract to allocate risk related to initial mispricing where, in exchange for guaranteeing a minimum price, the underwriter participates indirectly in upside performance. The results raise important questions about interpretations of IPO underpricing in the US.

We study the role of banking relationships in IPO underwriting. When a firm in Japan goes public, it can engage an investment bank that is related through a common main bank, or can select an alternative investment bank. The main bank relationship can be an efficient way for the investment bank to acquire information generated by the main bank, but may give rise to conflicts of interest. We find that main bank relationships give small issuers increased access to equity capital markets, but that issuers of large IPOs often switch to non-related investment banks that are capable of managing large offerings. While investment banks seek to exploit bargaining power with related issuers, issuers respond to expected high issue cost by switching to non-related investment banks. The net result is that total issue costs through related and non-related investment banks are similar. With respect to aftermarket performance and use of proceeds, we find no evidence of conflict of interest or self-dealing for either the main bank or the investment bank.

In contrast to prior studies suggesting that overallotment option (OAO) provisions reflect underwriters' exploitation of IPO firms, we provide evidence that issuers benefit in several ways. We estimate that OAO provisions lead to lower total issue cost, less negative post-IPO performance, lower post-IPO volatility, and larger IPOs. OAO provisions are more likely for large firms undertaking relatively large IPOs, especially where a large portion of the shares are offered by selling shareholders. Our evidence also indicates that managers and other insiders may benefit if their shareholdings would be locked up unless the OAO call option feature was exercised.

The price formation process of JASDAQ IPOs is more transparent than in the United States. The transparency facilitates analysis of important issues in the IPO literature—why offer prices only partially adjust to public information and adjust more fully to negative information, and why adjustments are related to initial returns. The evidence indicates that early price information conveys the underwriter's commitment to compensate investors for acquiring and/or disclosing information. Offer prices reflect pre‐IPO market values of public companies and implicit agreements between underwriters and issuers that originate well before the offering. Underadjustment of offer prices is substantially reversed in the aftermarket.

We use the IPOs of supply-chain partners as precipitating events and test for positive spillovers on private firms (the “IPO spillover hypothesis”). A trading partner’s IPO may benefit its suppliers through increased demand and its customers by reducing an input-related growth constraint. A newly public firm may also transmit additional liquidity to trading partners through trade credit practices. Using Japanese data on important relationships between IPO firms and their private suppliers and customers, we find that suppliers and customers experience significantly higher rates of growth in revenue, cash balances, and PP&E than do other private firms. The paper appears to be the first to document real and financial effects of positive liquidity shocks on supply-chain partners.