We look for necessary properties of shareholder-value maximizing corporate boards when shareholders face a trade-off between improving information sharing between the board and management and reducing distortions in decision-making arising out of managerial agency. We draw a distinction between...

The political choice between candidates with different redistribution policies plays out very differently in a complete financial market. When voters have the opportunity to trade election-contingent securities, we find that 1) wealth considerations have no effect on voting, so the interaction...

We analyze the problem of dilution leading to inefficient underinvestment caused by the adverse selection problem. We assume that the market obtains information about the firm over time, but that at each date the manger possesses better information about firm prospects than does the market. We...

Regulators express growing concern over predatory loans, which the authors take to mean loans that borrowers should decline. Using a model of consumer credit in which such lending is possible, they identify the circumstances in which it arises both with and without competition. The authors find...

Complete financial markets transform the political choice between candidates with different redistribution policies. If redistribution policies do not affect aggregate wealth, then financial trade implies that wealth considerations have no effect on voting and so do not affect who wins. However,...

We characterize optimal corporate boards when shareholders face a trade-off between improving information sharing between the board and management and reducing distortions in decision making arising out of managerial agency. We show that allocating authority to management is suboptimal....