We relate trade credit to product characteristics and aspects of bank-firm relationships and document three main empirical regularities. First, the use of trade credit is associated with the nature of the transacted good. In particular, suppliers of differentiated products and services have...

It is typically less profitable for an opportunistic borrower to divert inputs than to divert cash. Therefore, suppliers may lend more liberally than banks. This simple argument is at the core of our contract theoretic model of trade credit in competitive markets. The model implies that trade...

Private benefits of control distort the risk choices of owner-managers. In particular, when riskier projects entail a larger increase in cash flow than in private benefits (if successful), (more) equity financing renders the owner-manager (more) conservative, which lowers both expected payoff...

We compare activism and takeovers from a blockholder's perspective who can invest effort into improving firm value. Profits from the two intervention modes move in opposite directions when the marginal return to effort changes such that activism, although less efficient, can be more profitable....

We develop a dual-layered agency model to study blockholder monitoring by activist funds that compete for investor flow. Competition for flow affects the manner in which activist funds govern as blockholders. In particular, funds inflate short-term performance by increasing payouts financed by...

In many organizations, decisions are taken by unanimity giving each member veto power. We analyze a model of an organization in which members with heterogenous productivity privately contribute to a common good. Under unanimity, the least efficient member imposes her preferred effort choice on...

This paper examines how the interaction of bidder's private information and target shareholders' free-riding behavior affects the equilibrium outcomes and bid design in tender offers. While pooling equilibria always exist, separating ones emerge only in two scenarios. First, the bidder can...

We study when firms choose to install boards and their roles in a historical setting where neither boards nor their duties are mandated by law. Boards arise in firms with large, heterogenous shareholder bases. We propose that an important role of boards is to mediate between heterogenous...

This paper analyzes how outsiders, such as bidders or activist investors, overcome the lack of coordination and information among dispersed shareholders. We identify the two basic means to achieve this goal. First, the outsider must relinquish private benefits in a manner that is informative...