Mutual insurance companies and stock insurance companies are different forms of organized risk sharing: policyholders and owners are two distinct groups in a stock insurer, while they are one and the same in a mutual. This distinction is relevant to raising capital and selling policies in the...

We identify a new benefit of index or parametric triggers. Asymmetric information between reinsurers on an insurer's risk affects competition in the reinsurance market: reinsurers are subject to adverse selection, since only high-risk insurers may find it optimal to change reinsurers. The result...

We highlight the implications of combining underwriting services and lending for the choice of underwriters and for competition in the underwriting business. We show that cross-selling can increase underwriters' incentives, and we explain three phenomena: first, that cross-selling is important...

We analyze the effect of committee formation on how corporate boards perform two main functions: setting CEO pay and overseeing the financial reporting process. The use of stock-based pay schemes induces the CEO to manipulate earnings, which leads to an increased need for board oversight. If the...

When performance measures are used for evaluation purposes, agents have some incentives to learn how their actions affect these measures. We show that the use of imperfect performance measures can cause an agent to devote too many resources (too much effort) to acquiring information. Doing so...

The paper analyses the question who should be provided with incentives to acquire and reveal information about the quality of an investment proposal: the divisional manager, who derives private benefits of control from the project and therefore prefers to carry out the project, or the capital...

When performance measures are used for evaluation purposes, agents have some incentives to learn how their actions affect these measures. We show that the use of imperfect performance measures can cause an agent to devote too many resources (too much effort) to acquiring information. Doing so...

We highlight the implications of combining underwriting services and lending for the choice of underwriters and for competition in the underwriting business. We show that cross-selling can increase underwriters' incentives, and we explain three phenomena: first, that cross-selling is important...

The paper analyzes the relationship between a firm's financing and its project incorporation decisions. It is shown that headquarters may have an incentive to carry out a new project within a subsidiary rather than within the existing firm. The project is partially financed through an external...

This paper considers the effect of competition for scarce financial resources on managers' incentives to generate profitable investment opportunities. Competition is only unambiguously beneficial if projects are symmetric. If divisions differ in their cash endowments or their growth potential,...