We use a dynamic model of financing decisions to measure agency conflicts for a large panel of 12,652 firms from 14 countries. Our estimates show that agency conflicts are large and vary significantly across firms and countries. Differences in agency conflicts are largely due to differences in...

We study optimal contracting between a firm selling a divisible good that exhibits positive externality and a group of agents in a social network. The extent of externality that each agent receives from the consumption of neighboring agents is privately held and is unknown to the firm. By...

We study a contracting problem in continuous-time where the principal hires an agent to conduct an R&D project for which progress towards success is binary. Under general concave payoffs, we explicitly derive the optimal dynamic incentive con- tract. In the first best scenario where incentives...

The conventional view is that capital requirements, those intended to reduce bank risks, can have a negative impact on bank lending. This paper reconsiders this view by studying the interaction between capital requirements and corporate governance. Our model highlights how capital requirements...

Intangible capital can be used to create new goods and services (product intangibles) or to improve the efficiency of the firm (process intangibles). We reveal and study a new empirical fact: Executive and skilled labor pay is increasing in firm process intensity (the fraction of intangibles...

We consider optimal incentive contracts when managers can, in addition to shirking or diverting funds, increase short term profits by putting the firm at risk of a low probability "disaster." To avoid such risk-taking, investors must cede additional rents to the manager. In a dynamic context,...