The objective of this paper is to identify the determinants of office capitalization rates for a panel of 52 countries (developed and emerging countries) between 2000 and 2006. Our assumption, based on a Capital Asset Pricing Model, is that the capitalization rate should be at least proportional...

This paper analyzes the implications of executive hedge markets for firm value maximization in an optimal contracting framework. The main results are as follows: Without any hedging ability, the manager underinvests in risk at the firm level to diversify his own compensation risk. If the manager...

Strategic investment is studied in a model where oligopolists take decisions sequentially. First period investment determines second period wealth and output, and this is anticipated correctly by Cournot oligopolists. In our model with linear technology firms invest less as competition...

Traditionally share price returns and their variance have been explained by factors linked to the operations of the company such as systematic risk, corporate size and P/E ratios or by factors related to the influence of the macroeconomic environment. In these models, the institutional...

In this paper we address the following question: is it more profitable, for an entrant in a differentiated market, to acquire an existing firm than to compete? We illustrate the answer by considering competition in the banking sector.

This paper has described two broad systems of corporate governance existing in Continental Europe and in the UK.

Individuals exchange contracts for the delivery of commodities in competitive markets and, simultaneously, act strategically; actions affect utilities across individuals directly or through the payoffs of contracts. This encompasses economies with asymmetric information, Nash-Walras equilibria...

We study a general model of common-value second-price auctions with differential information. We show that one of the bidders has an inform tion advantage over the other bidders if and only if he possesses dominantstrategy. A dominant strategy is in fact unique and is given by the conditional...

I develop a model of stochastic costly signaling in the presence of exogenous imperfect information, and study whether equilibrium signaling decreases ('information substitutes') or increases ('information complements') if the accuracy of exogenous information increases. A stochastic pure costly...

Social status, or prestige, is an important motive for buying art or collectibles and for participation in charity auctions. We study a symmetric private value auction with prestige motives, in which the auction outcome is used by an outside observer to infer the bidders’ types. We elicit...