Although trademarks are mentioned in many firms’ initial public offering (IPO) prospectuses, their influences on the IPO valuation process are underexplored. This paper studies the relationship between a firm's pre-IPO trademarks and its IPO underpricing. Using 4457 US IPOs during the period 1980–2018, we find that firms with a larger number of trademarks prior to the IPO date experience significantly less IPO underpricing. We employ a quasi-natural experiment brought about by the 1996 Federal Trademark Dilution Act and an instrumental variable approach to establish causality. Our findings suggest that trademarks help reduce information asymmetry among various IPO participants, leading to less underpriced IPOs.

中文翻译：

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商标和IPO抑价

尽管许多公司的首次公开募股 (IPO) 招股说明书中都提到了商标，但它们对 IPO 估值过程的影响尚未得到充分探索。本文研究了一家公司的 IPO 前商标与其 IPO 抑价之间的关系。使用 1980-2018 年期间的 4457 次美国 IPO，我们发现在 IPO 日期之前拥有大量商标的公司经历的 IPO 抑价显着减少。我们采用 1996 年《联邦商标稀释法》带来的准自然实验和工具变量方法来建立因果关系。我们的研究结果表明，商标有助于减少各种 IPO 参与者之间的信息不对称，从而降低 IPO 的低价。