In this article we analyse the effects of different regulatory schemes (price cap and profit sharing) on a firm’s investment of endogenous size. Using a real option approach in continuous time, we show that profit sharing does not affect a firm’s start-up decision relative to a pure price...

This paper explores the role of public debt and fiscal deficits on factor productivity in an economy with credit market frictions and heterogeneous firms. When credit market conditions are sufficiently weak, low interest rates permit the government to run Ponzi schemes so that permanent primary...

For carbon-intensive, internationally-traded industrial goods, a unilateral increase in the domestic CO2 price may result in the reduction of the domestic production but an increase of imports. In such sectors as electricity, cement or steel, the trade flows result more from short-term regional...

We use a unique dataset to estimate the impact of a large credit supply shock on employment in Spain. We exploit marked differences in banks’ health at the onset of the Great Recession. Several weak banks were rescued by the State and they reduced credit more than other banks. We compare...

It is frequently observed that the implementation of green policies is delayed compared to the initial announcement. Considering a setting with a representative monopolist extracting a non-renewable resource, we demonstrate that announcing a green policy, but then delaying its implementation, is...

A healthy financial system encourages the efficient allocation of capital and risk. The collapse of the house price bubble led to the financial crisis that started in 2007. There is a large empirical literature concerning the relation between asset price bubbles and financial crises. I evaluate...

In a standard adverse selection world, asymmetric information about product quality leads to quality deterioration in the market. Suppose that a higher investment level makes the realization of high quality more likely. Then, if consumers observe the investment (but not the realization of...

This interdisciplinary paper explains how mathematical techniques of stochastic optimal control can be applied to the recent subprime mortgage crisis. Why did the financial markets fail to anticipate the recent debt crisis, despite the large literature in mathematical finance concerning optimal...

We view the entrepreneur as an agent who possesses human capital in the form of specific skills or talents. When she starts a firm, her human capital is essential to the firm and it has substantial private value. The entrepreneur transforms her human capital over time into what we call...