We posit that screening IPOs requires specialized labor which is in fixed supply. A sudden increase in demand for IPO financing increases the compensation of IPO screening labor. This results in reduced screening, encouraging sub-marginal firms to enter the IPO market, further fueling the demand...

In this article I identify optimal incentive contracts for managers of firms competing in the product market. Such firms often confront similar decisions and uncertainties. Managers can improve decision quality by generating private signals through costly effort. However, since signals are...

We show that entrepreneurs may prefer to allow insider trading even when it is not socially optimal. We examine a model in which an insider/manager allocates resources on the basis of his private information and outside information conveyed through the secondary-market price of the firm's...

We examine how certain firm- and market-specific characteristics affect incumbent firms' responses to new entry into their local markets. Data comes from the discount department store industry where Wal-Mart entered a large number of markets in a short period of time. Consistent with existing...

We develop a model of the acquisition market in which the acquirer has a choice between two takeover mechanisms: mergers and tender offers. A merger is modeled as a bargaining game between the acquiring and target firms; whereas a tender offer is modeled as an auction in which bidders arrive...