This paper examines the effects of capital gains taxation on firms’ investmentand financing decisions. We develop a real options model in which the timing ofinvestment, the decision to default, and the firm’s capital structure are endogenouslyand jointly determined. Our analysis demonstrates...

This paper examines the impact of agency conicts on corporate nancing decisions. Werst build a dynamic contingent claims model in which nancing policy results from a trade-obetween tax benets, contracting frictions, and agency conicts. In our setting, partially-entrenched managers set the rms'...

This paper examines the effects of capital gains taxation on firms’ investmentand financing decisions. We develop a real options model in which the timing ofinvestment, the decision to default, and the firm’s capital structure are endogenouslyand jointly determined. Our analysis demonstrates...

Municipal bonds trade in opaque, decentralized broker-dealer markets in which price information is costly to gather. Whether dealers in such a market operate competitively is an empirical issue, but a difficult one to study. Data in such markets is generally not centrally recorded. We analyze a...

This paper studies the corporate policy distortions caused by realization-based capital gains taxation at the personal level in a dynamic trade-off theory model. The lock-in effect of embedded capital gains creates severe conflicts of interest between incumbent and new investors. The firms...

This paper examines the role of bond ratings and the effects of rating-based regulations in thecorporate bond market. Exploiting an unanticipated mechanical change in how the benchmarkLehman bond indices are constructed in 2005, we show that rating-induced market segmentationof the bond market...

We develop a dynamic model of corporate investment and financing decisions in whichcorporate insiders have superior information about the firm's growth prospects. We show thatrms with positive private information can credibly signal their type to outside investors usingthe timing of corporate...

In spite of the fact that they can draw on a larger, more liquid and more diversifiedpool of capital than the equity of reinsurance companies, financial markets have failed to displace reinsurance as the primary risk-sharing vehicle for natural catastrophe risk. We show that this failure can be...

Over the period 2002 to 2003, Switzerland and the European Union (EU) were engaged in negotiations regarding banking secrecy. The EU's stated goal was for Switzerland to abolish banking secrecy. Switzerland refused and offered to impose a withholding tax on interest income instead. The two...

When information is costly, a seller may wish to prevent prospective buyers from acquiring information, for the cost of information acquisition is ultimately borne by the seller. A seller can achieve the desired prevention of information acquisition through posted-price selling, by offering...