We consider a model of external financing in which entrepreneurs are privately informed about the quality of their projects and seek funds from competitive financiers. The literature restricts attention to monotonic or ‘manipulation proof' securities and finds that straight debt is the unique...

We consider a model of external financing in which privately informed entrepreneurs seek funds from competitive financiers. The literature restricts attention to monotonic securities and finds that straight debt is the uniquely optimal. Monotonicity is justified by the argument that it would...

I consider the role of firm transparency in shaping its capital structure. In a costly-state-verification model, the optimal capital structure can be implemented by a mixture of debt and outside equity. Consistent with empirical evidence, leverage decreases with both past and expected...

We study a dynamic moral hazard setting where the manager has private ev- idence that predicts the firm's cash flows. When performance is low, bad news disclosure is rewarded by a lower borrowing cost relative to the no-evidence case. In contrast, no disclosure is associated with higher...