We develop a general equilibrium model of a production economy which has a risky production technology as well as a growth option to expand the scale of the productive sector of the economy. We show that when confronted with growth options, the representative consumer may sharply alter...

Using recently collected data on Finnish small businesses, we provide evidence that the debt capacity of growth options, defined as the amount of debt that firms optimally raise for an incremental project, is negative, especially in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. We...

A stronger long-term orientation is considered a competitive advantage of family firms relative to non-family firms. In this study, we use panel data of U.S. firms and analyze this proposition. Our findings are surprising. Only in when the family is involved in the management of the firm is the...

Business groups in emerging markets perform better than unaffiliatedfirms. One explanation is that business groups substitute some functions ofmissing institutions, for example, enforcing contracts. We investigate thisby setting up a model where firms within the business group are connectedto...

In this paper, we first discuss the characteristics and major benefits of the Swissrisk-based capital standards for insurance companies (Swiss Solvency Test), introduced in 2006. As the insurance industry is one of the largest institutional investors in Switzerland, changes to its asset and...

The aim of this paper is to study the influence of nonlinear dependencies on a nonlifeinsurers risk and return profile. To achieve this, we integrate several copulamodels in a dynamic financial analysis (DFA) framework and conduct numericaltests within a simulation study. We also test several...

Dynamic financial analysis (DFA) has become an important tool in analyzing thefinancial situation of insurance companies. Constant development and documentationof DFA tools has occurred during the last years. However, several questionsconcerning the implementation of DFA systems have not been...

In their 2001 Journal of Risk and Insurance article, Stewart C. Myers and James A.Read, Jr., propose to use a specific capital allocation method for pricing insurancecontracts. We show that in their model framework no capital allocation to lines ofbusiness is needed for pricing insurance...

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'...