By James Kwak
The so-called JOBS act is a victory of faith over basic logic. The motivating idea seems to be that if we reduce the regulations that govern the process of raising capital, small companies will find it easier to raise money, and that money will translate into jobs. Many people have pointed out some of the problems with the bill: recently, for example, Andrew Ross Sorkin highlighted the potential for companies to take advantage of investors, and Steven Davidoff pointed out that regulation is probably not the reason for the decline in the number of small company IPOs.
There are a couple of more fundamental misunderstanding I want to focus on, however. First, it’s not clear that relaxing regulations will actually make it cheaper for companies to raise money. Sure, eliminating the independent audit requirement will save companies a few bucks. But what really affects the cost of capital is not out-of-pocket fees but the price that investors are willing to pay for equity. The less confidence that investors have in a company’s prospects, the cheaper that company will have to sell its stock. If small companies are allowed to provide less information to investors, that could simply make it more expensive for them to raise money.
This Must Be a Joke
By James Kwak
From the Times article on President Obama’s signing of the JOBS Act (emphasis added):
The thing speaks for itself.
(True, the phrase “social media sites like Facebook” is paraphrase from the reporter, not a direct quotation, but I have no reason to believe it isn’t an accurate representation of what the act’s backers said.)
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