A definitive conclusion regarding the attractiveness of private equity relative to public equity in the context of decreasing numbers of public stocks escapes the breadth of this paper. The pages ahead will show that there certainly are fewer publicly traded companies than in years past, and certain regulatory changes may incentivize private companies to stay private for longer. However, there is no conclusive evidence that the U.S. stock market is overly concentrated, or that institutional investors should consider any changes to their strategic allocations to public and private equities based specifically on this issue, holding all else equal.