Search Results
Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 11.
(refine search)
Working Paper
If at first you don't succeed: an experimental investigation of the impact of repetition options on corporate takeovers
This paper models, and experimentally simulates, the free-rider problem in a takeover when the raider has the option to ?resolicit,? that is, to make a new offer after an offer has been rejected. In theory, the option to resolicit, by lowering offer credibility, increases the dissipative losses associated with free riding. In practice, the outcomes of our experiment, while quite closely tracking theory in the effective absence of an option to resolicit, differed dramatically from theory when a significant probability of resolicitation was introduced: The option to resolicit reduced the costs ...
Working Paper
Corporate board composition, protocols, and voting behavior: experimental evidence
We model experimentally the governance of an institution. The optimal management of this institution depends on the information possessed by insiders. However, insiders, whose interests are not aligned with the interests of the institution, may choose to use their information to further personal rather than institutional ends. Researchers (e.g., Palfrey 1990) and the business press have both argued that multiagent mechanisms, which inject trustworthy but uninformed ?watchdog? agents into the governance process and impose penalties for conflicting recommendations, can implement institutionally ...
Working Paper
Insider trading, costly monitoring, and managerial incentives
In this paper we show, in an incomplete contracts framework that combines asymmetric information and moral hazard, that by permitting insiders to trade on personal account the equilibrium level of output can be increased and shareholder welfare can be improved. There are two reasons for this. First, insider trading impounds information regarding the costs and benefits of effort and perk consumption into asset prices, which allows shareholders to choose more efficient portfolio allocations. Second, allowing insider trading can induce managers to increase their stake in the firm beyond that ...
Working Paper
Collusion in uniform-price auctions: experimental evidence and implications for Treasury auctions
In uniform-price auctions of shares there exist collusive equilibria in which bidders capture the entire surplus from the auction as well as competitive equilibria in which the auctioneer captures the entire surplus from the auction. We provide experimental evidence that, in uniform-price auctions, non-binding pre-play communication facilitates convergence to collusive equilibrium outcomes. On the other hand, regardless of the opportunities for communication, in discriminatory-auction experiments subject strategies conform closely with the unique equilibrium in undominated strategies in which ...
Working Paper
Insider trading and the problem of corporate agency
This paper models an economy in which managers, whose efforts affect firm performance, are able to make "inside" trades on claims whose value is also dependent on firm performance. Managers are able to trade only on "good news," that is, on returns above market expectations. Further, managers cannot trade at all unless permission for such trading is granted by shareholders. Insider trading is in derivative securities and thus does not adversely affect the firm's cost of raising funds. In this setting, it is shown that a prohibition on insider trading may still generate welfare improvement ...
Conference Paper
Rents, regulation and risk-taking in the banking industry
Journal Article
The buck stops where? The role of limited liability in economics
Over the last few centuries laws have increasingly protected individuals and corporations from liability resulting from bad economic outcomes. This evolution in liability provisions, by many accounts, has significantly influenced both the level and distribution of contemporary economic output as well as the allocation of financial resources in today's financial markets. ; Through a review of an extensive and growing literature, the authors of this article consider how limited liability affects investment, labor, and financing decisions made by individuals and corporations as well as ...
Working Paper
Information quality, performance measurement, and security demand in rational expectations economies
The relationship between asset demand and information quality in rational expectations economies is analyzed. First we derive a number of new summary descriptive statistics that measure four basic characteristics of investment style: asset selection, market timing, aggressiveness, and specialization. Then we relate these statistics to the divergence between a given investor's information structure and the market average information structure. Finally, we demonstrate that informational differentials can be identified, and consistently estimated, using OLS from the time series of observed asset ...