Diversified firms often trade at a discount with respect to their focused counterparts. The literature has tried to explain the apparent misallocation of resources with lobbying activities or power struggles. We show that diversification can destroy value even when resources are efficiently...

Continuing this series on the theory of financial management, the current article investigates capital structure, offering insight into the roles of stockholder wealth maximization, the risk-return trade-off, and agency conflicts. Much literature addresses this topic, and some of the most recent...

When the debt of firms in distress is dispersed, a restructuring agreement is difficult to reach because of free riding. We develop a repeated game in which banks come across each other frequently, allowing them to threaten a punishment in case of free riding. As the number of lending banks...