There are fewer public companies in the U.S. than there were in the nineties. Understanding the reason for the decline in the number of public companies is important to understanding whether or not the decline is a cause for concern, as well for thinking about what if anything policymakers should about it. In an interesting May 2017 paper entitled “Looking Behind the Declining Number of Public Companies: An Analysis of U.S. Capital Markets” (here), EY takes a detailed look at the drop in the number of companies listed on U.S. exchanges and examines the causes. The paper’s analysis has a number of important implications for policymakers, for investors, and for all market observers. A version of the EY paper appeared in a May 18, 2017 post on the Harvard Law School Forum of Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation blog (here).
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