We analyse the Pareto optimal contracts between lenders and borrowers in a model with asymmetric information. The model is a generalization of the Rothschild-Stiglitz pure adverse selection problem to include moral hazard with limited liability contracts. Entrepreneurs with unequal ``abilities"...

This Paper analyses the response of stock and credit default swap (CDS) markets to rating announcements by the three major rating agencies during 2000-02. Applying event study methodology, we examine whether and how strongly these markets respond to rating announcements in terms of abnormal...

Money management is an activity in which agents are often evaluated on the basis of their relative performance. In this article we consider an oligopolistic market in which some informed fund managers aim at maximizing their relative performance, rather than their absolute performance. First, we...

In an economy where entrepreneurs with unequal ‘abilities’ face alternative investment projects, which differ in their degree of risk and productivity, we analyse the Nash equilibrium contracts arising from a banks-borrowers game in the context of asymmetric information. We show that, for a...

Insider trading in the credit derivatives market has become a significant concern for regulators and participants. This paper attempts to quantify the problem. Using news reflected in the stock market as a benchmark for public information, we report evidence of significant incremental...

We survey the literature analysing the price formation and trading process, and the consequences of market organization for price discovery and welfare. We develop a united perspective on theoretical, empirical and experimental approaches. We discuss the evidence on transaction costs and the...

The main aims of this paper are, first, to construct a consistent comparative set of data on the sources of finance for investment over the period 1970--89 for Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and second, to challenge some conventional views of the international...

We find that institutional ownership in publicly traded companies is associated with more innovation (measured by cite-weighted patents). To explore the mechanism through which this link arises, we build a model that nests the lazy-manager hypothesis with career-concerns, where institutional...

We examine the role of security design when lenders make inefficient accept-or-reject decisions after screening projects. Lenders may be either 'too conservative', in which case they reject positive-NPV projects. Or they may be 'too aggressive', in which case they accept negative-NPV projects....

Eastern Europe is engaged in a massive programme of financial reform. This paper argues that while this programme has many desirable features, it has failed to address some of the most basic issues. These concern the relationship between the financial system and the enterprise sector, and the...