We analyse the role of debt in persuading an entrepreneur to pay out cash flows, rather than to divert them. In the first part of the paper we study the optimal debt contract - specifically, the trade-off between the size of the loan and the repayment - under the assumption that some debt...

We view a contract as a list of outcomes. Ex ante, the parties commit not to consider outcomes not on the list, i.e., these are "ruled out". Ex post, they freely bargain over outcomes on the list, i.e., the contract specifies no mechanism to structure their choice; in this sense outcomes on the...

This paper discusses some of the attempts economists have made in the last ten years or so to integrate norms into the theory of the firm. The paper argues that (a) although norms are undoubtedly very important both inside and between firms, incorporating them into the theory has been very...

This paper discusses how economists’ views of firms’ financial structure decisions have evolved from treating firms’ profitability as given; to acknowledging that managerial actions affect profitability; to recognizing that firm value depends on the allocation of decision or control...

What determines how integrated a firm is? We emphasize the benefits of "control" when there are difficulties in writing complete contracts. We define the firm as being composed of its assets. We present a theory of costly contracts which emphasizes that contractual rights can be of two types:...

We are concerned with the design of a constitution for a firm - an ex-ante contract which assigns residual rights of control (and possibly residual income rights) without reference to the issue to be decided. We focus attention on two polar constitutions: nonprofit cooperatives and outside...