Property rights and access to equity capital in China

This study uses recent improvements to China's physical and intellectual property protections to test information asymmetry, signaling, and litigation risk theories of initial public offering (IPO) underpricing. We find robust evidence that stronger physical and intellectual property protections are associated with lower initial returns, especially among smaller IPOs and non-equity carve-outs. This result is consistent with the notion that property rights reduce information asymmetry among IPO participants; however, some of China's reforms, including the 2014 establishment of specialized intellectual property courts in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, appear to have increased litigation risk. Additional tests indicate that property rights positively impact the likelihood that an IPO firm is backed by venture capital. Overall, these results are consistent with the idea that strong property rights help alleviate the adverse selection problem that results from information asymmetry among firms and equity investors. •Property rights improvements in China are associated with lower underpricing.•The effect is observed for both physical and intellectual property rights.•The result is stronger for IPOs likely to suffer from greater information asymmetry.•The establishment of specialized intellectual property courts increased litigation risk.•Improvements are also associated with a greater likelihood of VC backing.