In this paper, we utilize an e-commerce development indicator in tandem with big data to measure the variations of e-commerce development across counties in the People's Republic of China and assess its impact on entrepreneurship in both rural and urban areas. We find that households living in...

Despite the explosive growth of peer-to-peer lending in the People's Republic of China (PRC), information asymmetry remains a critical issue and is likely to be amplified in such an evolving credit market compared to a traditional credit market. This paper studies how investors screen the...

This paper investigates the impacts of defined-benefit (DB) pension plans on the corporate investment choices between diversifying and non-diversifying investments. We find a firm's DB plan coverage is negatively associated with its propensity of making a major investment. Subject to a major...

We analyse the impact of the introduction of a new technology on the National Stock Exchange in India that allowed trading of stocks without the need to transfer paper share certificates (demat trading). We document a decrease in the bid-ask spread and an increase in trading volume following its...

The vast majority of firms in developing economies are micro and small enterprises owned by families whose members also provide the labour to the units. Often, they fail to grow in size even with the relaxation of credit constraints. In this paper, we show that frictions in the labour market...

In uniform-price auctions of shares there exist collusive equilibria in which bidders capture the entire surplus from the auction as well as competitive equilibria in which the auctioneer captures the entire surplus from the auction. We provide experimental evidence that, in uniform-price...

This paper considers lending to finance projects in a setting where repayment enforcement appears impossible. The loan was illegal and thus legally unenforceable. Creditors were incapable of applying private coercion to force repayment. Borrowers lacked both collateral and reputation capital....

We model experimentally the governance of an institution. The optimal management of this institution depends on the information possessed by insiders. However, insiders, whose interests are not aligned with the interests of the institution, may choose to use their information to further personal...

This paper models an economy in which managers, whose efforts affect firm performance, are able to make "inside" trades on claims whose value is also dependent on firm performance. Managers are able to trade only on "good news," that is, on returns above market expectations. Further, managers...

In this paper we show, in an incomplete contracts framework that combines asymmetric information and moral hazard, that by permitting insiders to trade on personal account the equilibrium level of output can be increased and shareholder welfare can be improved. There are two reasons for this....