What happens when liquidity increases in credit markets and more funds are channeled from borrowers to lenders? We examine this question in a general equilibrium model where financial matchmakers help borrowers (firms) and lenders (households) search out and negotiate profitable matches and...

Many existing theories of financial intermediation have difficulty explaining why financial activity can generate large real effects. This paper argues that the large real effects may reflect a multiplicity of equilibria. The multiple equilibria in this paper are generated by the dynamic...

This paper looks at the outsourcing of research and development (Ramp;D) activities. We consider cost reducing Ramp;D and allow manufacturing firms to decide whether to outsource the project to research subcontractors or carry out the research in-house. We use a principal-agent framework and...

In a word, where information is costly, volatile cash flows create information acquisition costs that reduce value. Thus, managers act to reduce their firm's volatility of cash flow in anticipation of higher value for shareholders. However, when managers reduce the firm's cash flow volatility,...

Poor performance by the financial sector can be costly for society. On the other hand, a healthy banking sector has been thought by some to contribute to the growth of the economy. Recently, though, economists have begun to analyze new elements of the linkages between the financial and real...

This paper studies the phenomenon of mismatch in a decentralized credit market where borrowers and lenders must engage in costly search to establish credit relationships. Our dynamic general equilibrium framework integrates incentive based informational frictions with a matching process...