Given that, in equilibrium, all agents freely opt for strictly positive own coverage, competitive models of asymmetric information predict a positive relationship between coverage and ex post risk (accident probability). On the other hand, some recent empirical studies find either negative or no...

We consider project financing under adverse selection and moral hazard and derive several interesting results. First, we provide an explanation of why good firms issue both debt and underpriced equity (even if the bankruptcy and agency costs of debt are zero). Second, we show that, in the...

This paper revisits the problem of adverse selection in the insurance market of Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976). We propose a simple extension of the game-theoretic structure in Hellwig (1987) under which Nash-type strategic interaction between the informed customers and the uninformed firms...

This paper revisits the problem of adverse selection in the insurance market of Rothschild and Stiglitz. We propose a simple extension of the game-theoretic structure in Hellwig under which Nash-type strategic interaction between the informed customers and the uninformed fi rms results always in...

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 propose a model of financial system architecture that highlights the positive interaction between banks and markets in a setting where each agent believes that she can evaluate information better than any other agent. Banks emerge endogenously and their interaction with markets is facilitated...