In this paper we show that reputation formation in endogenously formed relationships is a decisive determinant for the existence and performance of credit markets. In theabsence of any third party enforcement of debt repayment the contracting parties succeed in establishing stable bilateral...

We study product innovation and imitation in the market of corporate underwriting with a dynamic model where client switching costs and the bankers’ expertise in deal structuring characterize the life cycle of a security. While the clientele loyalty allows positive rent extraction, the superior...

This paper studies the impact of cash constraints on equilibrium research intensities in a patent race between a current owner of the “state of the art” technology (the incumbent) and entrants. We develop a simple model, where players need to raise funds from imperfectly informed creditors to...

While the debate on how economic agents form expectations and how these expectationsshould be modelled has been key to modern macroeconomics, money illusion has been ananathema to macroeconomists until recently. The rational expectations revolution in the1970's thoroughly banned the study of...

For decades economists have considered money illusion aslargely irrelevant. Here we show, however, that money illusion haspowerful effects on equilibrium selection. If we represent payoffs innominal terms almost all subjects play at or close to an inefficientequilibrium whereas if we lift the...

When information is costly, a seller may wish to prevent prospective buyers from acquiring information, for the cost of information acquisition is ultimately borne by the seller. A seller can achieve the desired prevention of information acquisition through posted-price selling, by offering...

Investment banks develop their own innovative derivatives to underwrite corporate issues but they cannot preclude other banks from imitating them. However, during the process of underwriting an innovator can learn more than its imitators about the potential clients. Moving first puts him ahead...

Investment Banks invest in R&D to design innovative securities even when imitation is possible, i.e., when innovations cannot be patented. We show how a financial institution can profit from the development of financial products even if they are unpatentable. For certain types of financial...

Investment banks imitate other banks innovative corporate securities with their own varieties, and compete with the innovator to underwrite new issues. This paper uses data of all the corporate offerings of Equity-Linked and Derivative Securities from the SDC records to estimate the issuers...

The evidence from many experiments suggests that people are heterogeneous with regard to their abilities to make rational, forward looking, decisions. This raises the question when the rational types are decisive for aggregate outcomes and when the boundedly rational types shape aggregate...