1 Why do stock exchanges demutualize and go public?

In this paper we investigate what drives the decision of stock exchanges to demutualize and go public. We find that stock exchanges that demutualize and go public are in countries with a higher level of economic and political freedom facing greater competition from their peers. Demutualized exchanges go public to raise capital, and because they are subject to more trade migration. Comparing the motivation of stock exchanges to go publicly listed with “common companies”, we find that larger, older and riskier stock exchanges do not go public, but the primary motive seems to be to make acquisitions