We examine the proposition that competitive firms must behave as if they were maximizing profits; otherwise they would go bankrupt, or even fail to be financed in a competitive capital market. We investigate a model in which an entrepreneur raises funds for a risky enterprise on a competitive...

This note, which was stimulated by Ekern and Wilson's study of the theory of the firm in an economy with incomplete markets, gives conditions for ex ante and ex post stockholders to be unanimous in their respective preferences among alternative production plans. This modest extension of Ekern...