While Initial Public Offerings like Facebook's make front page news, life after an IPO and its impact on the broader economy have not been looked at in-depth. A new Kauffman Foundation report released today examines the little-studied employment and revenue growth performance of all domestic operating companies that have made IPOs over the past 15 years and offers insights for policymakers.
According to the report titled "Post-IPO Employment and Revenue Growth for U.S. IPOs, June 1996-2010," the volume of initial public offerings fell nearly 70 percent in the past decade from the average volume in the prior two decades. This drop – from an average of 298 domestic operating companies per year during 1980-2000 to an average of only 90 per year during 2001-2011 – was even more precipitous among small companies.
