Open source projects produce goods or standards that do not allow for the appropriation of private returns by those who contribute to their production. In this paper we analyze why programmers will nevertheless invest their time and effort to code open source software. We argue that the...

The constraint on informal finance is commonly taken to be high costs and limited supply. But the majority of informal investors - family and friends - is often willing to supply funds at negative returns, and yet many borrowers tap family and friends only as a last resort. We explain this...

We derive the effects of credit risk transfer (CRT) markets on real sector productivity and on the volume of financial intermediation in a model where banks choose their optimal degree of CRT and monitoring. We find that CRT increases productivity in the up-market real sector but decreases it in...

Open source projects produce goods or standards that do not allow for the appropriation of private returns by those who contribute to these projects. In this paper we analyze why programmers will nevertheless invest their time and effort to code open source software. We argue that the particular...

Financing from family and friends is the predominant type of informal finance. This paper proposes a theory that reconciles two seemingly paradoxical traits of this form of finance, namely, it is often provided at negative prices but nevertheless eschewed by borrowers. A central prediction is...

We examine the effect which credit risk transfer (CRT) markets have on real sector productivity and the volume of financial intermediation in an economy. We find that, despite a reduction in per-firm monitoring, CRT increases productivity in the up-market segment of the real sector but decreases...

We study a model in which firms compete preemptively for trading opportunities and risk management introduces latency in trading. As the time pressure faced by firms is endogenous to risk management choices, strategic complementarities can trigger a “race to the bottom” where prioritizing...

This paper studies speculators' demand and supply for diverse information. The general insights are that liquidity externalities can generate complementarities in information acquisition and information sales are strategic means to manipulate liquidity. Three specific results illustrate these...

The role of social ties in governance is controversial. We theorize that this ambivalence is natural: Social ties transmit incentives between individuals, so how they affect governance hinges on the specific incentives transmitted. We show this in a principal-supervisor-agent model where the...