Under incomplete contracting, limited liability creates differential valuations of investments from private and government perspectives. Managers in the private sector tend to over-invest in risky technologies, compared to levels of investment that are optimal from the standpoint of the society...

Although evidence suggests that institutional investors play a role in monitoring management,not all institutions are equally willing or able to serve this function. We present a stylized model that examines the effects of institutional monitoring on executive compensation. The model predicts...

In a June 12, 1990 Wall Street Journal article entitled "Warning Flag: When a Firm's Stocks and Bonds Diverge," the stocks and bonds of companies such as Pan Am and TWA were cited as being clearly mispriced. How, the article asked, could Pan Am's stock be trading at $2.50 per share when its...

The role of high leverage in corporate restructuring, popularity of junk bonds (original-issue, high-yield bonds) and the savings & loan crisis have been important aspects of the finance scene in the 1980s. A very active academic literature has developed in recent years on dealing with financial...

"This paper provides new evidence regarding the information content of debt ratings. We show that noninvestment grade subordinated issues are consistently priced too high (the yield is too low), and the reverse is true for some investment grade bonds. We relate this empirical bias to a notching...