This paper examines the impact of trade secret laws on the underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) in the United States, where we focus on the Uniform Trade Secret Act and/or the inevitable disclosure doctrine. Given that trade secret laws help firms protect their know-how in the form of trade secrets, we propose that trade secrets protected by these laws may result in increased corporate opacity, leading to greater IPO underpricing. Empirically, the average first-day returns of IPOs in states with trade secret laws are 12.7% higher than those in states without such laws. Using the information disclosed in the 10-K report on whether the firm owns trade secrets, we suggest that the existence of trade secret laws enhances the protection effect of firm maintenance of trade secrets, which leads to greater IPO underpricing. Further analyses show that the effect of trade secret laws is reinforced for IPO firms operating in complex industries, IPO firms with R&D investments, and large IPO firms, suggesting that trade secret laws increase the difficulties investors face in assessing the intrinsic value of such firms.

本文探讨了商业秘密法对美国首次公开募股 (IPO) 定价过低的影响，其中我们重点关注《统一商业秘密法》和/或不可避免的披露原则。鉴于商业秘密法帮助企业以商业秘密的形式保护其专有技术，我们认为受这些法律保护的商业秘密可能会导致企业不透明性增加，从而导致IPO抑价幅度加大。根据经验，有商业秘密法的州IPO的平均首日回报率比没有商业秘密法的州高12.7%。根据10-K报告中披露的企业是否拥有商业秘密的信息，我们认为商业秘密法的存在增强了企业维护商业秘密的保护效果，从而导致更大的IPO抑价。进一步的分析表明，对于复杂行业的IPO公司、有研发投资的IPO公司以及大型IPO公司来说，商业秘密法的影响得到加强，这表明商业秘密法增加了投资者评估此类公司内在价值的难度。