This paper explores the role of testing in models of asymmetric information. The authors demonstrate conditions under which testing for underlying characteristics can overcome adverse selection problems and lead to a full-information competitive equilibrium. This paper provides a more general...

There is considerable evidence that patients that are treated by high volume physicians and hospitals have better health outcomes than patients treated by low volume physicians and hospitals. Thus, as an indirect measure of quality differences between managed care and traditional fee-for-service...

We examine two views of the creation of venture-backed start-ups, or "entrepreneurial spawning." In one, young firms prepare employees for entrepreneurship, educating them about the process, and exposing them to relevant networks. In the other, individuals become entrepreneurs when large...

We examine the investment behavior of firms before and after being spun off from their parent companies. Their investment after the spin-off is significantly more sensitive to measures of investment opportunities (e.g., industry Tobin's "Q"or industry investment) than it is before the spin-off....

Standard models of informed speculation suggest that traders try to learn information that others do not have. This result implicitly relies on the assumption that speculators have long horizons, i.e, can hold the asset forever. By contrast, we show that if speculators have short horizons, they...

The US financial services industry grew from 4.9 percent of GDP in 1980 to 7.9 percent of GDP in 2007. A sizeable portion of the growth can be explained by rising asset management fees, which in turn were driven by increases in the valuation of tradable assets, particularly equity. Another...

We present evidence that high concentration in local mortgage lending reduces the sensitivity of mortgage rates and refinancing activity to mortgage-backed security (MBS) yields. A decrease in MBS yields is typically associated with greater refinancing activity and lower rates on new mortgages....