The interest rate is a key determinant of firm investment. We integrate a widely used term structure model of interest rates, CIR (Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (1985)), with the q theory of investment (Hayashi (1982) and Abel and Eberly (1994)). We show that stochastic interest rates have...

An entrepreneur faces substantial non-diversifiable business risk and liquidity constraints, both of which we refer to as frictions. We show that these frictions have significant economic effects on business start-up, capital accumulation/asset sales, portfolio allocation, consumption/saving,...

We formulate a dynamic financial contracting problem with risky inalienable human capital. We show that the inalienability of the entrepreneur’s risky human capital not only gives rise to endogenous liquidity limits but also calls for dynamic liquidity and risk management policies via standard...

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 develop a model of investment timing under uncertainty for a financially constrained firm. Facing external financing costs, the firm prefers to fund its investment through internal funds, so that the firm's optimal investment policy and value depend on both its earnings fundamentals and...

Hedge fund managers are compensated via management fees on the assets under management (AUM) and incentive fees indexed to the high-water mark (HWM). We study the effects of managerial skills (alpha) and compensation on dynamic leverage choices and the valuation of fees and investors' payoffs....

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...

This paper provides a model of investment timing by managers in a decentralized firm in the presence of agency conflicts and information asymmetries. When investment decisions are delegated to managers, contracts must be designed to provide incentives for managers to both extend effort and...

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...

Entrepreneurs often face undiversifiable idiosyncratic risks from their business investments. We extend the standard real options approach to an incomplete markets environment and analyze the joint decisions of business investments, consumption/savings, and portfolio selection. For a lump-sum...