This paper tests a new hypothesis that bank managers issue public debt, at least in part, to convey positive, private information and refrain from issuance to hide negative, private information. This positive selection hypothesis is tested against the traditional adverse selection hypothesis. We...

We employ a unique dataset of 6,669 credit assessments for 3,542 small businesses by nine banks using an identical rating model over the period 2006-2011 to examine (i) to what extent loan officers use their discretion to smooth credit ratings of their clients, and (ii) to assess whether this...

We employ a unique dataset of 6,669 credit assessments for 3,542 small businesses by nine banks using an identical rating model over the period 2006-2011 to examine (i) to what extent loan officers use their discretion to smooth credit ratings of their clients, and (ii) to assess whether this...

Partial ownership can be used as a screening device by a foreign firm which wants to merge with a local firm whose productivity is private information. As partial ownership is confined to sharing future merger profits, it cannot achieve complete separation in all cases but improves expected...

A principal provides budgets to agents (e.g., divisions of a firm or the principal’s children) whose expenditures provide her benefits, either materially or because of altruism. Only agents know their potential to generate benefits. We prove that if the more “productive” agents are also...

Much insider trading literature focuses on the redistribution of monetary rents. This focus has led to ambiguous and conflicting results, unable to identify who the clear winners and losers of insider trading legislation are. Lacking any clearly defined beneficiary, an analysis of the origins...

If the defendant in a lawsuit is better informed than the plaintiff about the value of damages that could potentially be assigned by the court, biasing the burden of proof toward the plaintiff may lower aggregate efficiency losses from litigation. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

We study a model of imperfectly discriminating contests with two ex ante symmetric agents. We consider four institutional settings: Contestants move either sequentially or simultaneously and in addition their types are either public or private information. We find that an effort-maximizing...

Many new web-based services are introduced as free services. Depending on the seller’s business model, some remain free in the long run, while others switch to pay mode at some point in time. I characterize the relation between buyers and a new service seller when the former are uncertain...