Signalling and the Pricing of New Issues

This paper develops a signaling model with two signals, two attributes, and a continuum of signal levels and attribute-types to explain new issue underpricing. Both the fraction of the new issue retained by the issuer and its offering price convey to investors the unobservable "intrinsic" value of the firm and the variance of its cash flows. Many of the model's comparative statics results are novel, empirically testable, and consistent with the existing empirical evidence on new issues. In particular, the degree of underpricing, which can be inferred from observable variables, is positively related to the firm's postissue share price. Copyright 1989 by American Finance Association.

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