Traditional finance theory based on the assumptions of symmetric information and perfect and competitive markets has provided many important insights. These include the Modigliani and Miller Theorems, the CAPM, the Efficient Markets Hypothesis and continuous time finance. However, many empirical...

Positive and negative asset price bubbles and their relationship to monetary policy are considered. Positive bubbles occur when there is an agency problem between banks and the people they lend money to because the banks cannot observe how the funds are invested. This causes a risk shifting...

A complex financial system comprises both financial markets and financial intermediaries. We distinguish financial intermediaries according to whether they issue complete contingent contracts or incomplete contracts. Intermediaries such as banks that issue incomplete contracts, e.g., demand...

A welfare analysis of a simple noisy rational expectations model is carried out. It is shown that the more information prices convey, the worse off everybody can be. However, the equilibrium where everybody is uninformed may not be Pareto optimal: imposing a tax on information gathering which...

The authors examine the legal and business environments, financing channels, and governance mechanisms of various types of firms in India and compare them to those from other countries. Despite its English commonlaw origin, strong legal protection provided by the law, and a democratic...