In recent years there has been an enormous amount of research into the way companies raise finance from stock markets. There are many reasons for this interest in 'initial public offerings' (IPOs): * the capital-raising function of stock markets is particularly important in financing firms and encouraging entrepreneurship and growth * the late 1990s witnessed an IPO boom in many countries, with unprecedented numbers of companies going public * two stylized facts appear to be valid in many countries: IPOs are initially systematically underpriced, often by dramatic amounts, and over the longer term they seem to under-perform other companies. The attempt to explain these phenomena has resulted in a burgeoning theoretical literature * there is a continuing policy debate over the most appropriate institutional arrangements to enable firms to access the stock market in an efficient manner, including the roles of financial intermediaries, institutional investors, and the rules laid down by stock exchanges * privatizations are a particular type of IPO, and the world-wide trend towards privatization has raised many questions regarding the most appropriate ways to sell companies to the public. Going Public is the first book to investigate the issues in a non-technical manner, drawing upon international evidence from private sector companies and privatizations. Building on the success of the first edition, this second edition of Going Public has been comprehensively revised and updated throughout.