We analyse the behaviour of a monopolistic firm in general equilibrium when the firm’s decision are taken through shareholder voting. We show that, depending on the underlying distribution, rational voting may imply overproduction as well as underproduction, relative to the efficient level....

I propose a model of mergers in which synergies and CEO power play a crucial role. A merger is modeled as a bargaining game between the acquiring and the target board of directors, with the gains from a merger divided according to the generalized Nash bargaining solution. The model's...

An extensive empirical literature in strategy and finance studies the performance implications of corporate diversification. Two core debates in the literature concern the existence of a diversification discount and the relative importance of industry relatedness and market structure for the...

We augment efficiency-based theories of ownership by including influence costs. Our principal conclusion is that the prospect of organizational decline and layoffs creates additional influence costs in multi-unit organizations that would be absent if there were no prospect of layoffs and would...

Tax systems often discriminate among the various organizational forms of doing business and may therefore affect the choice of organizational form. This paper studies how special tax regimes shape the organizational form choice. Although the full effects depend on the way that firm-level special...

Does an institutional change that eases exit via bankruptcy reform enhance venture growth? We take advantage of a quasi-natural experiment in Japan to examine this question. Using longitudinal data over a 10-year period, we find that bankruptcy reform not only increases the rates of bankruptcy...

We examine operating and investment decisions in a duopolistic industry in which an initial investment in research yields an immediate tax benefit for one firm, but creates a net operating loss carryover for the other firm. We show that the conventional wisdom that suggests that the first firm...

This paper uses a stratified sample of firms across OECD economies over the period 1996-2004 to analyse the effects of corporate taxes on productivity and investment. Applying a differences-in-differences estimation strategy which exploits differential effects of corporate taxes on firms with...

Business registration is crucial for ensuring accountable, transparent and viable business environments. By bringing businesses into the formal economy, governments are able to provide more strategic and targeted policies for businesses and consumers. The objective of this working paper is to...