Flexibility theory of capital structure, credit rationing, and stage-financing theory are consistent with many patterns of financing of entrepreneurial or small/medium size enterprises (SME). Tax theory of capital structure does not seem to play a significant role for SMEs as opposite to large...

We take issue with claims that the funding mix of banks, which makes them fragile and crisis-prone, is efficient because it reflects special liquidity benefits of bank debt. Even aside from neglecting the systemic damage to the economy that banks' distress and default cause, such claims are...

We take issue with claims that the funding mix of banks, which makes them fragile and crisisprone, is efficient because it reflects special liquidity benefits of bank debt. Even aside from neglecting the systemic damage to the economy that banks' distress and default cause, such claims are...

Adopting a simplistic view of Coase (1960), most economic analyses of property rights disregard both the key advantage that legal property rights (that is, in rem rights) provide to rightholders in terms of enhanced enforcement, and the difficulties they pose to acquirers in terms of information...

This book explains how public registries strengthen property rights and reduce transaction costs, analyzes the main tradeoffs in their organization, and proposes principles for successfully developing registries in countries at different stages of development. The book focuses on land and...

The Trust Indenture Act prohibits a binding vote of bondholders to change any core term-principal amount, interest rate, or maturity date-of a bond issue. In this Article, I show how the prohibition on a collective action clause inhibits a troubled company's ability to reorganize outside of...

Most legal and economics scholars recognize both that the government needs information about taxpayers’ transactions in order to determine whether their reporting is honest, and that third-party reporting helps the government obtain that information. Given governments’ reliance on tax funds,...

Civil liability of rating agencies has to strike a balance between over-deterrence and overly lax behavior control. The resulting problems of a capital market freeze and difficulties of proof, as they become apparent in most legal systems and the European Commission's Draft Proposal to amend the...

Professor John P. Anderson's article, What's the Harm in Issuer-Licensed Insider Trading?, argues that my “Law of Conservation of Securities” has no moral relevance to the question whether to allow such trading.The Law of Conservation of Securities demonstrates that each stock market insider...