It is possible to study companies according to their methods of gaining access to finance, and in particular the stock market. Two approaches are possible. The first looks at the organisation of such access through the relationships built up by the company with suppliers of capital, enabling the...

Privatization in India is mostly limited to the diffuse sale of minority stakes in firms. Since control rights have not been transferred to private owners it is widely contended that the process has had little impact on firm behavior. We find however that even the sale of minority stakes has a...

Cette article se propose d'identifier des comportements économiques spécifiques et de les mettre en rapport avec les décisions d'investissement, en particulier immatériel, opérés par les entreprises. Il est tout d'abord nécessaire de définir la compétitivité et de proposer un...

This work attempts to shed light on the “information technology productivity paradox”. Employing a large data set of Italian manufacturing firms we compute ICT marginal productivity across different cluster of firms and the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on output...

This paper shows how fixed costs can play an important role in determining the structure of organizations. Applications considered include layoffs, downsizing, heterogeneity among firms, and the structure of hierarchies. Agency problems as a source of fixed costs are also considered.

This paper offers a theoretical treatment of information disclosure through patenting. We consider a signaling model in which two domestic firms disclose their competencies to a foreign firm. Conditions are discussed under which separating and pooling equilibria occur, together with a...

We study the aggregate effects of a social security reform in a large overlapping generations model where markets are incomplete and households face uninsurable idiosyncratic income shocks. We depart from the previous literature by assuming that, because of lack of commitment in the credit...

The theory of asset pricing, which takes its roots in the Arrow-Debreu model (Theory of value [1959, chap. 7]), the Black and Sholes formula (1973) and Cox and Ross (1976 a and b), has been formalized in a general framework by Harrison and Kreps (1979), Harrison and Pliska (1979) and Kreps...

This paper studies effects of two classes of borrowing constraints, collateral- and income-based, on wealth accumulation, portfolio behavior and on precautionary motives. We examine the sensitivity of solutions to tightness of constraints, education level, and preference parameters. The models...

The large wealth and consumption inequality in the U.S. is usually attributed to two market frictions: debt constraints and incomplete markets. Recent literature has argued that debt constraints are the critical friction while market incompleteness plays only a secondary role. We evaluate the...