Time inconsistency provides a motivation for linear Ramsey taxation in a Mirrleesian economy. Moreover, such a motivation overturns some classic results from the Ramsey taxation literature; specifically, indirect taxation may neither be useless (i.e., redundant) nor uniform.

This paper provides a theory of government intervention, such as government ownership, regulation, mandatory public schooling, subsidies, and industrial policy, as an optimal policy response due to the inability to commit not to expropriate private investment or bail agents out. If the...

Incentive compensation induces correlation between the portfolio of managers and the cash flow of the firms they manage. This correlation exposes managers to risk and hence gives them an incentive to hedge against the poor performance of their firms. We study the agency problem between...

The paper studies the institution of bankruptcy when exclusive contracts cannot be enforced ex ante, e.g., a bank cannot monitor whether the borrower enters into contracts with other creditors. The institution of bankruptcy enables the bank to enforce its claim to any funds that the borrower has...

This paper studies the choice between investment in new and used capital. We argue that used capital inherently relaxes credit constraints and thus firms which are more credit constrained invest more in used capital. Used capital is cheap relative to new capital in terms of its purchase price...

Household risk management, that is, households' insurance against adverse shocks to income, assets, and financing needs, is limited and often completely absent, in particular for poor households. We explain this basic pattern in household insurance in an infinite horizon model in which...

This paper studies the role of leasing of productive assets. When capital is leased (or rented), it is more easily repossessed and hence leasing has higher debt capacity and relaxes financing constraints. However, leasing gives rise to an agency problem with regard to the care with which the...

This paper develops a dynamic model of the capital structure based on the need to collateralize loans with tangible assets. The model provides a unified theory of optimal firm financing in terms of the optimal capital structure, investment, leasing, and risk management policy. Tangible assets...