A risk-averse entrepreneur with access to a profitable venture needs to raise funds from investors. She cannot indefinitely commit her human capital to the venture, which limits the firm's debt capacity, distorts investment and compensation, and constrains the entrepreneur's risk-sharing. This...

We propose a model of sovereign debt where countries vary in their level of financial development, defined as the extent to which countries can hedge rare disasters in international capital markets. We show that low levels of financial development generate the “debt intolerance” phenomenon...

We develop a dynamic portfolio-choice model with illiquid alternative assets to analyze conditions under which the “Endowment Model,” used by some large institutional investors such as university endowments, does or does not work. The alternative asset has a lock-up, but can be voluntarily...

The real options framework has been used extensively to analyze the timing of investment under uncertainty. While standard real options models assume that agents possess a constant rate of time preference, there is substantial evidence that agents are very impatient about choices in the...

How likely is a catastrophic event that would substantially reduce the capital stock, GDP and wealth? How much should society be willing to pay to reduce the probability or impact of a catastrophe? We answer these questions and provide a framework for policy analysis using a general equilibrium...

We analyze a model of optimal capital structure and liquidity choice based on a dynamic tradeoff theory for financially constrained firms. In addition to the classical tradeoff between the expected tax advantages of debt and bankruptcy costs, we introduce a cost of external financing for the...

We investigate whether the performance of Private Equity (PE) investments is sufficient to compensate investors (LPs) for risk, long-term illiquidity, management and incentive fees charged by the general partner (GP). We analyze the LP's portfolio-choice problem and find that management fees,...

We propose a dynamic theory of banking where the role of deposits is akin to that of productive capital in the classical q-theory of investment. As a cheap source of leverage, deposits typically create value for banks, but the marginal q of deposits can be negative. Deposit accounts commit banks...

We derive a parsimonious model of damage to corporate earnings from COVID-19. Using measures of expected damage from industry-level earnings forecast revisions, we estimate this model with nonlinear least squares and identifying restrictions related to forecast rationality. Forecasts in mid-May...

We develop a q theory of investment with endogenous leverage, payout, hedging, and risk-taking dynamics. The key frictions are costly equity issuance and incomplete markets. We show that the marginal source of external financing on an on-going basis is debt. The firm lowers its debt when making...