Uncertainty,competition, and costs in corporate bond underwriting

The effect of a syndicate's uncertainty regarding the demand for a new bond issue on the syndicate's choice of an offer and bid price, and on the spread between those two prices, is analyzed. Then, the impact of uncertainty on the spread is empirically tested. The hypothesis that the spread varies inversely with the number of bidders for an issue is also developed and tested, and several other hypothesized determinants of the spread are examined.