This paper demonstrates that when a rationing equilibrium occurs in credit markets due to adverse selection effects of the interest rate, it is necessarily a multiple contracts (i.e. multiple interest rates) equilibrium with rationing at one contract. Some consequent arguments for a welfare...

This paper introduces recursive Fama and MacBeth tests to assess the intertemporal significance and pervasiveness of macroeconomic factors and firm-specific characteristics in explaining the cross-section variation of expected returns in a dynamically changing stok market such as the Athens...

This paper argues that most of the facts charaterising small-scale businesses, including high failure rates, reliance on bank credit rather than equity finance, relatively low interest rate margins, and credit rationing, can be explained by a tendancy for those who are excessively optimistic to...

Gift giving is thought to be welfare decreasing. This claim rests on two key assumptions, namely, full information as to the whereabouts of all goods and the ability to reach the stores that contain desired goods costlessly. In this paper, we replace these two assumptions with the more realistic...

This paper surveys existing explanations for the use of collateral in credit markets and relates them to the empirical evidence on the subject. Collateral may be used as a screening or an incentive device in markets characterized by various forms of asymmetric and biased information. The...

This paper addresses the issue of selecting pricing institutions in a bilateral monopoly. Suppose a bayer and seller can benefit from exchanging one unit of a good. The selelr is entitled to select the pricing institution. He can either make a take-it-leave-it offer or enter a bargaining game.

We show that it is sometimes efficient for a bank to commit to a policy that keeps information about its risky assets private. Our model, based upon Diamond-Dybvig [1983], has the feature that banks acquire information about their risky assets before depositors acquire it. Banks have the option...

This paper reverses the standard conclusion that asymmetric information plus competition results in insufficient insurance provision. Risk-tolerant individuals take few precautions and are disinclined to insure, but are drawn into a pooling equilibrium by the low premiums created by the presence...