Do Public Firms Respond to Industry Opportunities More Than Private Firms? The Impact of Initial Firm Quality

Vojislav Maksimovic is from the University of Maryland and can be reached at vmax@rhsmith.umd.edu. Gordon Phillips is from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and NBER and can be reached at gordon.m.phillips@tuck.dartmouth.edu. Liu Yang is from the University of Maryland and can be reached at lyang@rhsmith.umd.edu. We thank Ian Appel and seminar participants at the University of Alberta Frontier of Finance Conference, University of British Columbia, Dartmouth College, Hong Kong University, Nanyang Technological University, Purdue University, Singapore Management University, Huazhong University of Technology, SUNY Buffalo, University of Maryland and the University of Oregon for helpful comments. Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.