We contend that security design should be approached as a problem of game design. That is, contracts should specify the procedures that govern the behavior of contract participants in determining outcomes as well as the allocations resulting from those outcomes. We characterize optimal contracts...

A model of trading in speculative markets is developed based on differences of opinion among traders. Our purpose is to explain some of the empirical regularities that have been documented concerning the relationship between volume and price and the time-series properties of price and volume. We...

This article addresses the issue of whether shareholders would be better off with enhanced control over corporate decisions. The issue has been hotly debated in the recent literature. Our main contribution is to use formal modeling to uncover some factors overlooked in these arguments. For...

This article presents a model of optimal control of corporate boards of directors. We determine when one would expect inside versus outside directors to control the board, when the controlling party will delegate decision-making to the other party, the extent of communication between the...

This is an exploration of how bidding behavior of firms in various auctions is affected by their capital structure. The theoretical model considers a first-price sealed bid and an English auction. We find that as debt levels increase, firms tend to reduce their bids. The lower bids give the...

We use a movie industry project-by-project dataset to analyze the choice of financing a project internally versus financing it through outside alliances. The results indicate that project risk is positively correlated with alliance formation. Movie studios produce a variety of films and tend to...