In this paper we analyze taxation using the conjectural variations model of oligopoly. We demonstrate the way in which the incidence of a tax depends upon the pattern of firm interaction. The results obtained have important implications for the controversy surrounding the question of whether a...

Merger policy is the most active area of U.S. antitrust policy. It is now widely believed that merger policy must move beyond its traditional focus on static efficiency to account for innovation and address dynamic efficiency. Innovation can fundamentally affect merger analysis in two ways....

We correct and extend the results of Gans (2015) regarding the effects of net neutrality regulation on equilibrium outcomes in settings where a content provider sells its services to consumers for a fee. We examine both pricing and investment effects. We extend the earlier paper's result that...

This paper is a survey of the literature on boards of directors, with an emphasis on research done subsequent to the Hermalin and Weisbach (2003) survey. The two questions most asked about boards are what determines their makeup and what determines their actions? These questions are...

An objective of many proposed corporate governance reforms is increased transparency. This goal has been relatively uncontroversial, as most observers believe increased transparency to be unambiguously good. We argue that, from a corporate governance perspective, there are likely to be both...

In light of recent corporate scandals, numerous proposals have been introduced for reforming corporate governance. This paper provides a theoretical framework through which to evaluate these reforms. Unlike various ad hoc arguments, this framework recognizes that governance structures arise...

This paper studies the governance of a sample of California hospitals. We document a number of empirical relations about hospital governance: The composition of the board of directors varies systematically across ownership types; poor performance and low levels of uncompensated care increase...

This paper surveys the economic literature on boards of directors. Although a legal requirement for many organizations, boards are also an endogenously determined governance mechanism for addressing agency problems inherent to many organizations. Formal theory on boards of directors has been...

This paper provides a framework for understanding the risks to borrowers and lenders in capital markets. We begin with a description of a capital markets in a domestic context. This allows us to focus on two key imperfections which lie at the heart of all financial systems: imperfect...

This paper studies the ability of an agent and a principal to achieve the first-best outcome when the agent invests in an asset that has greater value if owned by the principal than by the agent. When contracts can be renegotiated, a well-known danger is that the principal can hold up the agent,...