Essays in Corporate Finance

Since its peak in 1996, the number of publicly listed US ?rms has declined by approximately 50%. In addition, US publicly listed ?rms are now on average larger and older than they were two decades ago. We collect a set of empirical facts on the changes in the distributions as well as entry and exit rates for public and private firms. We develop a model to evaluate which of two mechanisms | an increase in the cost of being public or a shift in the supply of private firm financing | can explain the decline in US public listings and changes in the firm distribution. We calibrate the model to match the data prior to 1996 and then quantify the extent to which these two mechanisms can explain the changes observed in the data.