In many countries, the legal system or social norms ensure that firms are stakeholder oriented. We analyze the advantages and disadvantages of stakeholder-oriented firms that are concerned with employees and suppliers compared to shareholder-oriented firms in a model of imperfect competition....

The recent global financial crisis has brought the debate on how interest rates affect bank risk-taking to center stage. Proponents of this new risk-taking channel of monetary policy have argued that the low interest–rate environment in the run-up to the crisis may have created incentives for...

We analyze financial contracting when the specificity of investments is endogenous. Specialization decreases the liquidation value of assets, but it also improves a firm's long term productivity. While the first effect is known to make financing more difficult, we show that the second effect can...

Evidence indicates that private equity funds, unlike mutual funds, deliver persistent abnormal returns and that top performing funds are often oversubscribed. Why do private equity funds appear to leave money on the table, rather than, say, increasing fund size and/or fees? We argue that private...

We analyze optimal financial contracts when the specificity of investments is endogenous. Specialization decreases the liquidation value of assets, but improves the asset's long-term productivity. While the former is known to make financing more difficult, we show that the latter can ease...

Do low interest rate environments lead to greater bank risk-taking? We show that, when banks can adjust their capital structures, reductions in real interest rates lead to greater leverage and higher risk for any downward sloping loan demand function. However, if the capital structure is fixed,...

Market discipline for financial institutions can be imposed not only from the liability side, as has often been stressed in the literature on the use of subordinated debt, but also from the asset side. This will be particularly true if good lending opportunities are in short supply, so that...

We provide a theoretical foundation for the claim that prolonged periods of easy monetary conditions increase bank risk taking. The net effect of a monetary policy change on bank monitoring (an inverse measure of risk taking) depends on the balance of three forces: interest rate pass-through,...

The recent global financial crisis has ignited a debate on whether easy monetary conditions can lead to greater bank risk-taking. We study this issue in a model of leveraged financial intermediaries that endogenously choose the riskiness of their portfolios. When banks can adjust their capital...

Market discipline for financial institutions can be imposed not only from the liability side, as has often been stressed in the literature on the use of subordinated debt, but also from the asset side. This will be particularly true if good lending opportunities are in short supply, so that...