In competitions for rank-based rewards, how does the structure of rewards affect risk-taking? We answer this question in a framework where, subject only to a mean-performance constraint, contestants compete for rank-based "prizes" by choosing random performance levels. We derive the unique...

This paper considers lending to finance projects in a setting where repayment enforcement appears impossible. The loan was illegal and thus legally unenforceable. Creditors were incapable of applying private coercion to force repayment. Borrowers lacked both collateral and reputation capital....

We model the repair of damaged corporate reputations through organizational structure reform. In a rational-choice framework our model explains the effects of the emergence and growth of the professional reputation-crisis management industry. The model produces two key conclusions: (a) Although,...

This appendix comprises four parts. The first part presents proofs of lemmas and propositions. The second part presents some additional robustness tests. The third part reports the results of analyses designed to reconcile our results with a prior empirical study on a closely related issue. The...

We show that stock liquidity increases the propensity of firms to raise debt capital. The positive effect of liquidity on a debt issuance propensity is much stronger in firms with greater default risk. The effect of liquidity on the cost of debt capital is much larger than its effect on the cost...

In hypercompetitive environments, are the “winners” talented or merely lucky? We answer this question by characterizing the relationship between talent, luck, and top performance in large competitions, where the number of competitors is unbounded. Our results imply that, for most standard...

We analyze a bargaining game in which one party, called the buyer, is the active player and has the option of choosing the sequence of negotiations with other participants, called sellers. If the negotiations are public, the sellers who are negotiated with late in the sequence are in stronger...

This paper develops and experimentally implements a simple multi-negotiation bargaining game, in which one agent, called the "developer," must reach agreements with a series of other agents, called "landowners," in order to implement a value-increasing project. The game has a unique subgame...

We examine auction design in a context where symmetrically informed buyers and sellers of a good with a common but uncertain value learn through experience. Buyer strategies, even in the very long run, do not converge to the Bertrand-Nash strategy of bidding the expected value of the good....