We examine the relationship between CEO ownership and stock market performance of S&P 500 (S&P 1500) firms from 1994-2005 (1996-2005). We find that firms in which the CEO holds a considerable share of outstanding stocks outperform the market by up to 16% p.a. after controlling for traditional...

We examine the relationship between CEO ownership and stock market performance. Firms in which the CEO voluntarily holds a considerable share of outstanding stocks outperform the market by more than 10% p.a. after controlling for traditional risk factors. The effect is most pronounced in firms...

Should the law restrict liability of defaulting borrowers‘ We abstract from possible benefits arising from limited rationality or risk-aversion of borrowers, contractual incompleteness, or lender moral hazard. We focus instead on general equilibrium implications of liability rules with moral...

Suppose the value of a firm is endogenously determined by a manager's costly effort. We call this manager a distinguished player if he also can trade shares of the firm on a market. Arbitrage-free asset pricing theory suggests that the equilibrium market price reflects the value increasing...

Most analyses of the recent financial crisis in the US focus on the consequences of the dramatic slump in housing prices that started in the mid-2000s, which led to rising mortgage defaults, shrinking home equity credit and liquidity in the banking system. Yet these accounts do not explain what...

We consider a public firm characterized by a moral hazard problem. A distinguished player is a CEO or activist shareholder who (i) is unrestricted to trade shares and (ii) has discretion to increase the value of this firm by exerting costly effort. von Lilienfeld-Toal and Rünzi (J Finance...

The euro crisis was fueled by the diabolic loop between sovereign risk and bank risk, coupled with cross-border flight-to-safety capital flows. European Safe Bonds (ESBies), a union-wide safe asset without joint liability, would help to resolve these problems. We make three contributions. First,...

Governments face a trade-off between insuring bondholders and taxpayers. If the government fully insures bondholders by manufacturing risk-free zero-beta debt, then it cannot also insure taxpayers against permanent macroeconomic shocks over long horizons. Instead, taxpayers will pay more in...

The euro crisis was fueled by the diabolic loop between sovereign risk and bank risk, coupled with cross-border flight-to-safety capital flows. European Safe Bonds (ESBies), a union-wide safe asset without joint liability, would help to resolve these problems. We make three contributions. First,...