We argue that the root cause behind the recent corporate scandals associated with CEO pay is the technology bubble of the latter half of the 1990s. Far from rejecting the optimal incentive contracting theory of executive compensation, the recent evidence on executive pay can be reconciled with...

We present a multiperiod agency model of stock based executive compensation in a speculative stock market, where investors are overconfident and stock prices may deviate from underlying fundamentals and include a speculative option component. This component arises from the option to sell the...

Does competition among financial intermediaries lead to excessively low standards? To examine this question, we construct a model where intermediaries design contracts to attract trading volume, taking into consideration that traders differ in credit quality and may default. When credit quality...

The market dynamics of technology stocks in the late nineties has stimulated a growing body of theories that analyze the joint effects of short-sales constraints and heterogeneous beliefs on stock prices and trading volume. This paper examines implications of these theories using a unique data...

We model the relationship between float (the tradable shares of an asset) and stock price bubbles. Investors trade a stock that initially has a limited float because of insider lock-up restrictions but the tradable shares of which increase over time as these restrictions expire. A speculative...

We create an analytical structure that reveals the long run risk-return relationship for nonlinear continuous time Markov environments. We do so by studying an eigenvalue problem associated with a positive eigenfunction for a conveniently chosen family of valuation operators. This family forms a...

We argue that the root cause behind the recent corporate scandals associated with CEO pay is the technology bubble of the latter half of the 1990s. Far from rejecting the optimal incentive contracting theory of executive compensation, the recent evidence on executive pay can be reconciled with...

We model the relationship between asset float (tradeable shares) and speculative bubbles. Investors with heterogeneous beliefs and short-sales constraints trade a stock with limited float because of insider lockups. A bubble arises as price overweighs optimists' beliefs and investors anticipate...