We consider a dynamic screening model where the agent may go bankrupt due to, for example, cash constraints. We model bankruptcy as a verifiable event that occurs whenever the agent makes a per period loss. This leads to less stringent truth-telling constraints than those considered in the...

Two recent papers examine the impact of corporate bankruptcy laws on new business start-ups in 29 countries over 1990 - 2008 (Peng et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2010). In this commentary, I briefly point out two significant issues which future researchers might want to consider. First, several countries...

This paper examines corporate distress episodes for the United States, Western Europe, and Asia during the late twentieth century, and charts the emergence and growth of new actors in the corporate restructuring process – distressed asset investment firms. We analyse the formation and growth...

Recent initiatives in a number of countries have sought to promote entrepreneurship through relaxing the legal consequences of personal bankruptcy. Whilst there is an intuitive link, relatively little attention has been paid to the question empirically, particularly in the international context....

We conjecture that angel investment in entrepreneurial firms depends on two types of bankruptcy laws around the world. Corporate bankruptcy laws impact investor terms and incentives to finance risky entrepreneurs, particularly given reforms that brought about a time-efficient, simplified, and...

Entrepreneurs, catalysts for innovation in the economy, are increasingly the object of policymakers' attention. Recent initiatives both in the UK and at EU level have sought to promote entrepreneurship by reducing the harshness of the consequences of personal bankruptcy law. Whilst there is an...

Two recent papers examine the impact of corporate bankruptcy laws on new business start ups in 29 countries over 1990-2008 (Peng et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2010). In this commentary, I briefly point out two significant issues which future researchers might want to consider along this line of...

The paper studies procurement contracts with pre-project investigations in the presence of adverse selection and moral hazard. To model the procurer's roblem, we extend a standard sequential screening model to endogenous information acquisition with moral hazard. The optimal contract displays...

Who does, and who should initiate costly certification by a third party under asymmetric quality information, the buyer or the seller? Our answer ' the seller ' follows from a non-trivial analysis revealing a clear intuition. Buyer-induced certification acts as an inspection device, whence...