Financial constraints are an important impediment to the growth of small businesses. We study theoretically and empirically how the financial constraints of agents affect their decisions to exert effort, and, hence the organizational decisions and growth of principals, in the context of...

When managers have objectives beyond maximizing monetary profits, inefficiencies may arise. An increase in competition may then force managers to improve the productivity of the firm in order to ensure survival. While this hypothesis has received ample theoretical attention, empirical evidence...

When managers have objectives beyond maximizing monetary profits, inefficiencies may arise. An increase in competition may then force managers to improve the productivity of the firm in order to ensure survival. While this hypothesis has received ample theoretical attention, empirical evidence...

We study the holdup problem in repeated transactions between a seller and a buyer such that the seller makes relation-specific investments in each period. We show that where, under spot transaction, formal contracts have no value because of the cooperative nature of investment, writing a simple...

Can formal contracts help resolving the holdup problem? We address this important question by studying the holdup problem in repeated transactions between a seller and a buyer in which the seller can make relation-specific investments in each period. In contrast to previous findings, we...

This paper studies how social relationships between managers and employees affect relational incentive contracts. To this end we develop a simple dynamic principal-agent model where both players may have feelings of altruism or spite toward each other. The contract may contain two types of...

We study upstream horizontal mergers and their potential efficiency gains. We show that an upstream horizontal merger can give rise to two efficiency-enhancing effects when firms trade through two-part tariffs. It increases R&D investments and decreases wholesale prices when downstream...

We explore the incentives of a vertically integrated incumbent firm to license the production technology of its core input to an external firm, transforming the licensee into its input supplier. We find that the incumbent opts for licensing even when licensing also transforms the licensee into...

In this paper, we study supplier encroachment in competition with multi-product retailers and its effects on retail profits under endogenous consumer shopping behavior. We find that supplier encroachment (weakly) increases both supplier and retailer profits, as the retailer benefits from better...

Environmental policies are often accompanied by exemptions for energy-intensive and trade-exposed industrial firms to avoid leakage from regulated to unregulated jurisdictions. This paper investigates the impact of a large electricity tax exemption on production levels, employment, and input...