This paper examines whether financial constraints affect firms’ investment decisions for older (larger) firms. We compare a group of unbanked firms to firms that rely on formal financing. Specifically, we combine data from the Spanish Mercantile Registry and the Bank of Spain Credit Registry...

This paper examines whether financial constraints affect firms’ investment decisions for older (larger) firms. We compare a group of unbanked firms to firms that rely on formal financing. Specifically, we combine data from the Spanish Mercantile Registry and the Bank of Spain Credit Registry...

We formulate and solve a range of dynamic models of information-constrained credit markets that allow for moral hazard and unobservable investment. We compare them to the exogenously incomplete markets environments of autarky, saving only, and borrowing and lending in a single asset. We use...

We analyze the role of commitment in a dynamic principal-agent model of optimal insurance with hidden effort and observable but non-contractible assets. We argue that the optimal contract under full commitment is time-inconsistent. Consequently, we solve for and analyze the optimal insurance...

We introduce learning based on genetic algorithms in a principal-agent model of optimal contracting under moral hazard. Applications of this setting abound in finance (credit under moral hazard), public finance (optimal taxation, information-constrained insurance), development (sharecropping),...

We use maximum likelihood techniques to distinguish across models of international capital flows using a comprehensive dataset on GDP, capital stocks, consumption, investment, employment, and net exports (used to measure capital flows) for 200 countries between 1950 and 2005. Specifically, we...

We analyze dynamic risk-sharing contracts between profit-maximizing insurers and risk-averse agents who face idiosyncratic income uncertainty and can self-insure through savings. We study Markov-perfect insurance contracts in which neither party can commit beyond the current period. We show that...

We develop a model to study the choice between formal and informal sources of credit in a setting with strategic default due to limited enforcement. Informal loans (e.g., from friends or relatives) are enforced by the threat of both parties losing the friendship relation. In contrast, formal...

We analyze optimal contractual forms and equilibrium matching in a double-sided moral hazard model of sharecropping similar to Eswaran and Kotwal (1985). We show that, with endogenous matching, the presence of moral hazard can reverse the matching pattern relative to the first best, and that...

Financial constraints and entrepreneurship are key factors affecting economic performance in developing countries. I formulate and solve a model of occupational choice with moral hazard under three alternative financial market environments: savings only, borrowing and lending with default and...