Certifiers contribute to the sound functioning of markets by reducing asymmetric information. They, however, have been heavily criticized during the 2008-09 financial crisis. This paper investigates on which side of the market a monopolistic profit-maximizing certifier offers his service. If the...

We cross-sectionally analyze the presence of aggregated hidden depth and trade volume in the S&P 500 and identify its key determinants. We find that the spread is the main predictor for a stock’s hidden dimension, both in terms of traded and posted liquidity. Our findings moreover suggest that...

A substantial number of empirical studies on the linear relationship between executive compensation and firm performance for European firms suggest that the pay-performance sensitivity is not significantly positive. We argue that a nonlinear structure fits the data better, because compensation...

We analyze the optimal combination of promotion tournaments and individual performance pay in an employment relationship. An agent's effort is non-observable and he has private information about his suitability for promotion. We find that the principal does not provide individual incentives if...

We study the effects of envy on the feasibility of relational contracts in a standard moral hazard setup with two agents. Performance is evaluated via an observable, but non-contractible signal which reflects the agent´s individual contribution to firm value. Both agents exhibit disadvantageous...

We examine the coexistence of banks and financial markets, studying a credit market where the qualities of investment projects are not observable and the investment decisions of entrepreneurs are not contractible. Standard banks can alleviate moral-hazard problems by securing a portion of a...

We provide elementary insights into the effectiveness of certification to increase market transparency. In a market with opaque product quality, sellers use certification as a signaling device, while buyers use it as an inspection device. This difference alone implies that seller-certification...

Lack of transparency in securitization transactions significantly contributed to the severe financial crisis of 2007–2009. To increase transparency we propose a new mechanism: financial claims with fingerprints. They would allow market participants at each stage of the securitization process...

This paper employs a new and comprehensive data set to investigate short-term herding behavior of institutional investors. Using data of all transactions made by financial institutions in the German stock market, we show that herding behavior occurs on a daily basis. However, in contrast to...

Due to data limitations and the absence of testable, model-based predictions, theory and evidence on herd behavior are only loosely connected. This paper attempts to close this gap in the herding literature. From a theoretical perspective, we use numerical simulations of a herd model to derive...