This paper establishes the result that the seller prefers posted-price selling when the cost of information acquisition is high, and auctions when it is low. We view corporate bonds as an instance of the former case, and government bonds as an instance of the latter.

When information is costly, a seller may wish to prevent prospective buyers from acquiring information, for the cost of information acquisition is ultimately borne by the seller. A seller can achieve the desired prevention of information acquisition through posted-price selling, by offering...

We provide a direct estimate of the magnitude of agency costs in U.S. publicly-held firms. Using a sample of 1,307 firms in 1992-1997, we compute an explicit performance benchmark that compares a firm’s actual Tobin’s Q to the Q∗ of a hypothetical fully-efficient firm having the same...

Shareholder agreements govern the relations among shareholders in privately-held firms, such as joint ventures or venture capital-backed firms. We provide an explanation for the use of put and call options, tag-along rights, drag-along rights, demand rights, piggy-back rights, and catch-up...

We treat information acquisition by potential investors in IPOs asendogenous. With endogenous information, the critical question iswhy underwriters would allow investors to spend resources acquiringsuperior information intended solely to effect a wealth transfer. Weshow that institutional...

We characterize the conditions under which firms choose to (i) merge, (ii) form an alliance, or (iii) trade assets. For that prupose, we distinguish between the firms' assets (what can be traded in isolation), thei knowhow (what can be learned but not traded), and their core competencies (what...

When information is costly, a seller may wish to prevent prospective buyers from acquiring information, for the cost of information acquisition is ultimately borne by the seller. A seller can achieve the desired prevention of information acquisition through posted-price selling, by offering...