Productivity growth has been slow in many continental European countries over the last few decades, especially in comparison with the United States. It has been argued that lack of product market competition and poor corporate governance are two of the main reasons for this phenomenon. However,...

Using a large panel of German manufacturing firms over the years 1986?1996, this study examines the impact of corporate governance and market discipline on productivity growth. We find that firms under concentrated ownership tend to show significantly higher productivity growth. Financial...

Suppose the value of a firm is endogenously determined by a manager's costly effort. We call this manager a distinguished player if he also can trade shares of the firm on a market. Arbitrage-free asset pricing theory suggests that the equilibrium market price reflects the value increasing...

This paper develops a principal-agent model of financial contracting in which optimal contracts resemble a combination of debt and equity. When defaulting on debt, the firm is punished by disruption of external funding. Such contracts however, invite rivals to compete more aggressively to...

Crowdfunding has mostly been used to finance very unique projects. Recently, however, companies have begun using it to finance more traditional products where they compete against other sellers of similar products. Major crowdfunding platforms, Kickstarter and Indiegogo, as well as Amazon have...

This paper develops a principalagent model of nancial contracting in which optimalcontracts resemble a combination of debt and equity. When defaulting on debt, therm is punished by disruption of external funding. Such contracts however, inviterivals to compete more aggressively to increase the...

Suppose the value of a firm is endogenously determined by a manager's costly effort. We call this manager a distinguished player if he also can trade shares of the firm on a market. Arbitrage-free asset pricing theory suggests that the equilibrium market price reflects the value increasing...

We examine the coexistence of banks and financial markets, studying a credit market where the qualities of investment projects are not observable and the investment decisions of entrepreneurs are not contractible. Standard banks can alleviate moral-hazard problems by securing a portion of a...

Productivity growth has been slow in many continental European countries over the last few decades, especially in comparison with the United States. It has been argued that lack of product market competition and poor corporate governance are two of the main reasons for this phenomenon. However,...

I explore the effect of the threat posed by low-cost competitors on debt structure in the airline industry. I use the route network expansion of low-cost airlines to identify routes where the probability of future entry increase dramatically. I find that when a large portion of their market is...