investment based financing constraints and debt renegotiation we consider how equity holders bargaining power during financial distress influences the interactions between financing and investment decisions when the firm faces the upper limit of debt issuance we obtain four results first weaker equity holders bargaining power is more likely that the firm is financially constrained second the investment quantity is independent of equity holders bargaining power third the constrained credit spreads are increasing with equity holders bargaining power contrary to the unconstrained ones fourth higher volatility and weaker equity holders bargaining power are likely that the firm prefers to issue debt with renegotiation compared with debt without renegotiation c 2014 elsevier b v all rights reserved

does the bond market predict bankruptcy settlements this study shows the extent to which deviations from the absolute priority rule increase or decrease the bankruptcy emergence payoff to traded i e usually junior claimants bondholders the data indicate that on average bondholders benefit albeit slightly from absolute priority rule apr violations this paper also examines the degree to which the bond market in the bankruptcy filing month anticipates departures from the apr and other influences on the payoff to bondholders in other words we investigate the informational efficiency of the market for bankrupt bonds overall despite the complex and lengthy nature of bankruptcy proceedings the results support efficiency the finance literature has traditionally assumed that when a firm enters bankruptcy the creditors become the owners and the value of the firm is distributed according to the absolute priority rule apr the apr states that senior creditors should be fully compensated before junior creditors receive any portion of the bankrupt firm s value and junior creditors should receive full payment before shareholders receive any compensation in practice formal bankruptcy proceedings are complex processes that often violate the apr brown 1989 captures some of the intricacies of this process in a game theoretic model showing that the solution to the bargaining process in bankruptcy can involve deviations from the apr although the solution

the influence of private contractual failure on regulation the case of oil field unitization an analysis of the interdependence between regulation and private contractual failure reveals that the feasible range of regulation is restricted by the same forces that block private agreement the focus of the study is oil field unitization regulation in oklahoma texas and wyoming federal lands from 1948 through 1975 despite large potential gains from unitization private negotiations fail because of lease heterogeneities and information problems regarding lease value estimates in response the federal and state governments have adopted strikingly different policies to encourage unitization with different results only the federal government s regulations are effective because they surmount information problems texas has the least successful regulation the paper argues that the policy differences are due to the political influence of small firms that benefit from nonunitized production 25 references 2 tables

is bitcoin really untethered this paper investigates whether tether a digital currency pegged to the u s dollar influenced bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices during the 2017 boom using algorithms to analyze blockchain data we find that purchases with tether are timed following market downturns and result in sizable increases in bitcoin prices the flow is attributable to one entity clusters below round prices induces asymmetric autocorrelations in bitcoin and suggests insufficient tether reserves before month ends rather than demand from cash investors these patterns are most consistent with the supply based hypothesis of unbacked digital money inflating cryptocurrency prices

can innovative reforms and practices efficiently resolve financial distress abstract the last few years have seen a phenomenal upsurge in the number of corporate bankruptcies the vulnerabilities that were lying dormant within contemporary bankruptcy regimes suddenly became apparent causing concerns within the international corporate community consequently researchers practitioners and policy makers from all over the world became actively engaged in emphasizing the importance of efficient bankruptcy reforms to promote a rescue culture the primary objective of an insolvency framework should be to provide quick transparent and cost effective solutions for resolving financial distress and promoting a synergetic environment conducive to the proliferation of healthy debt repayment practices increased trust factors between creditors and debtors and a better survival rate for viable businesses in this paper we present a qualitative review of various insolvency reforms introduced in several countries between 2005 and 2013 for efficiently resolving financial distress we delve into a discussion of the prevalent practice of resolving distress through the courts formal procedure or out of the courts private workout settlements the supporting literature and the limitations involved in the process overall our goal was to summarize and synthesize empirical data and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed insolvency reforms to provide a better understanding of common ways of resolving financial distress the data shows evidence that several countries have improved their bankruptcy ranking doing business reports by empowering creditors by expanding their rights under bankruptcy speeding up court procedures promoting out of court procedures and regulating insolvency practitioners lastly we adopt a normative approach by proposing a list of legal changes that should drive legislators actions in order to provide sustainable ways for resolving distress e g transparency early filling extension of floating charges electronic management of bankruptcy files etc

contractual responses to the common pool prorationing of crude oil production this paper examines bargaining among firms to mitigate rent dissipation following the major oil discoveries of 1926 35 because of high bargaining costs firms chose prorationing instead of consolidation and unitization and success varied the analysis also shows that prorationing took the form it did because concession such as per well quotas were required to draw in small operations and the quotas led to predictable responses regarding rent dissipation prorationing despite its costs controlled total field production and costs conserved natural reservoir energies and lengthened field life when private agreements failed the parties successfully appealed for state enforcement since similar heterogeneities influnce regulations elsewhere in the economy detailed analysis of bargaining among firms is essential for insight into the emergence of various institutional forms 33 references 3 tables

the exploitation of relationships in financial distress the case of trade credit this paper develops optimal pricing lending and renegotiation strategies for companies in relationships where one firm is highly dependent on the other long term trade creditor firm relationships induce dependent trade creditors to grant more concessions in debt renegotiations than nondependent creditors anticipating these larger renegotiation concessions not only do less financially stable firms prefer trade credit but all firms agree to pay a higher interest rate for trade credit the model also explains the existence of teaser interest rates and convenience classes findings are consistent with those of the relationship lending literature

the effect of bankruptcy protection on investment chapter 11 as a screening device asymmetric information and conflicts of interest between equity and debt holders can force a distressed but efficient firm to liquidate and may enable a distressed inefficient firm to continue in the extreme if it is costless for an inefficient firm to mimic an efficient firm in a debt restructuring efficient and inefficient firms are equally likely to continue or liquidate this article shows that chapter 11 procedures impose costs on ineffilcient firms that would otherwise mimic efficient firms this separation induces voluntary filing for bankruptcy by ineffilcient firms and consequently enables efficient firms to continue when they would otherwise be liquidated

pension plan accounting estimates and the freezing of defined benefit pension plans abstract this study provides evidence that when hard freezing their defined benefit pension plans employers select downward biased accounting assumptions to exaggerate the economic burden of their benefit plans downward biased expected rates of return and discount rates allow managers to increase reported pension expenses and for discount rates allow managers to increase reported pension liabilities we find that prior to the sarbanes oxley act both rates are downward biased when firms freeze their plans whereas after sox the bias is lower this finding is consistent with managers opportunistically biasing pension estimates to obtain labor concessions during periods of reduced regulatory scrutiny

an empirical investigation of u s firms in reorganization the purpose of this paper is to understand the institutional features of chapter 11 from an empirical examination of thirty firms that have emerged from reorganization we find the recontracting framework of chapter 11 to be complex lengthy and costly violations of absolute priority in favor of stockholders are frequently encountered these deviations may result from the bargaining process of chapter 11 or from a recontracting process between creditors and stockholders which recognizes the ability of stockholder oriented management to preserve firm value an example of such recontracting addresses myers underinvestment problem an investigation of the effects of chapter 11 on the pricing of risky debt is also provided the purpose of this paper is to understand the institutional features of chapter

an analysis of the use of accounting and market measures of performance in executive compensation contracts prior research has provided useful insights into the structure of compensation plans and their incentive effects however one important limitation of these studies is the virtual absence of any cross sectional analyses of the attributes of compensation contracts 2 this absence is related in part to the problems associated with controlling for other factors that affect compensation that is compensation contracts are

the effect of capital structure on a firm s liquidation decision abstract a firm s liquidation can impose costs on its customers workers and suppliers an agency relationship between these individuals and the firm exists in that the liquidation decision controlled by the firm as the agent affects other individuals the customers workers and suppliers as principals the analysis in this paper suggests that capital structure can control the incentive conflict problem of this relationship by serving as a pre positioning or bonding mechanism appropriate selection of capital structure assures that incentives are aligned so that the firm implements the ex ante value maximizing liquidation policy

bargaining with incomplete information an infinite horizon model with two sided uncertainty the resolution of any bargaining conflict depends crucially on the relative urgency of the agents to reach agreement and the information each agent has about the others preferences this paper explores within the context of an infinite horizon bargaining model with two sided uncertainty how timing and information affect the rational behaviour of agents when commitment is not possible since the bargainers are uncertain about whether trade is desirable they must communicate some of their private information before an agreement can be reached this need for learning due to incomplete information about preferences results in bargaining inefficiencies trade often occurs after costly delay thus the model provides an explanation for the inefficient bargaining behaviour that appears to occur often in practice

conflicts in bankruptcy and the sequence of debt issues this paper investigates the optimal sequencing of debt issues our theoretical model suggests that once firms issue debt with one level of seniority they may have an incentive to alternate seniorities because of violations of the priced absolute priority rule apr when we introduce explicit costs of class conflict the model yields cases of alternating seniorities and other cases in which firms issue only one class of debt the implications of the model are consistent with the observed regularities in a large database of debt issues we test several other implications of our model as well

an experimental study of the holdout problem in a multilateral bargaining game abstract when an economic exchange requires agreement by multiple independent parties the potential exists for an individual to strategically delay agreement in an attempt to capture a greater share of the surplus created by the exchange this holdout problem is a common feature of the land assembly literature because development frequently requires the assembly of multiple parcels of land we use experimental methods to examine holdout behavior in a laboratory bargaining game that involves multi person groups complementary exchanges and holdout externalities the results of six treatments that vary the bargaining institution number of bargaining periods and the cost of delay demonstrate that holdout is common across institutions and is on average a payoff improving strategy for responders both proposers and responders take a more aggressive initial bargaining stance in multi period bargaining treatments relative to single period treatments but take a less aggressive bargaining stance when delay is costly nearly all exchanges eventually occur in our multi period treatments leading to higher overall efficiency relative to the single period treatments both with and without delay costs

ex ante costs of violating absolute priority in bankruptcy a basic question for the design of bankruptcy law concerns whether value should be divided in accordance with absolute priority research done in the past decade has suggested that deviations from absolute priority have beneficial ex ante effects in contrast this paper shows that ex post deviations from absolute priority also have negative effects on ex ante decisions taken by shareholders such deviations aggravate the moral hazard problem with respect to project choice increasing the equityholders incentive to favor risky projects as well as with respect to borrowing and dividend decisions

empirical research on accounting choice abstract we review research from the 1990s that examines the determinants and consequences of accounting choice structuring our analysis around the three types of market imperfections that influence managers choices agency costs information asymmetries and externalities affecting non contracting parties we conclude that research in the 1990s made limited progress in expanding our understanding of accounting choice because of limitations in research design and a focus on replication rather than extension of current knowledge we discuss opportunities for future research recommending the exploration of the economic implications of accounting choice by addressing the three different reasons why accounting matters

capital structure under costly enforcement we consider financial structure and repayment behavior in a setting where cash flows are private information to the entrepreneur and the cost of enforcing repayment differs across security holders if enforcement costs are lower for shareholders than for creditors a mixed capital structure with debt and equity can obtain in equilibrium under a mixed capital structure creditors intervene in low cash flow states while shareholders intervene in high cash flow states moreover strategic defaults costly bankruptcy shareholder intervention and violation of absolute priority occur with positive probability on the equilibrium path several of the predictions from our framework are consistent with evidence not readily explainable by existing theories

second best mechanisms for land assembly and hold out problems abstract land can be inefficiently allocated when attempts to assemble separately owned parcels are frustrated by holdouts eminent domain can be used neither to gauge efficiency nor to determine adequate compensation we characterize the least inefficient class of direct mechanisms that are incentive compatible self financing and protect the property rights of participants the second best mechanisms which we call strong pareto sp utilize a second price auction among interested buyers with a reserve sufficient to compensate fully all potential sellers who are paid according to fixed and exhaustive shares of the winning buyer s offer these mechanisms are strategy proof dominant strategy incentive compatible individually rational and self financing they generate higher social welfare in each problem compared to any other type of mechanism satisfying these properties

asymmetric treatment of reported pension expense and income amounts in ceo cash compensation calculations abstract we provide evidence that ceo cash compensation is relatively less sensitive to pension expense than pension income suggesting that compensation committees shield ceo cash compensation from pension expense amounts we also provide evidence that managers use relatively higher expected rate of return estimates when reporting pension income suggesting that managers select income increasing accounting estimates in response to compensation committees greater emphasis on pension income in ceo cash compensation determinations pension cost amounts represent a unique setting to examine such behavior as their effect on ceo cash compensation can be detrimental or beneficial but arise from the same underlying economic activity

incentive conflicts bundling claims and the interaction among financial claimants we show that for certain capital structures equity has an incentive to buy out another claim and alter the firm s investment strategy so as to maximize the combined value of equity and the acquired claim this restructuring may reintroduce agency problems into capital structures which appear to avoid agency conflicts by bundling claims it is possible to avoid this agency problem the agency problem is also eliminated by dispersed ownership of the claims in the presence of other claims issued by the firm the projects that maximize the value of equity need not maximize the value of the firm e g myers 1977 an agency problem occurs because the equityholders select projects that are in the interest of equity rather than the firm as a whole for example if the firm comprises equity and bonds then equity would prefer risky projects and may undertake projects that are undesirable from the firm s perspective but desirable from the equity perspective the resulting difference in the claimants preferences among projects could be limited by structuring the financial claims so that the preferences of equityholders among projects are similar to those of the firm as a whole the issuance of separate claims that are individually both more risky and less risky than the equity can control incentive problems for a fixed capitalization without trading see jensen and meckling 1976 and green 1984 green 1984 examines the financing of a new project by a combination of warrants and bonds and shows that if the warrants and bonds correctly balance then the incentives of equity still will be to maximize the value of the firm for this fixed capital structure the incentive conflicts are removed and the optimal strategy for equity coincides with the firm s optimal strategy a time inconsistency problem can arise when an earlier period is added to allow trading among the financial claimants we initially suppose that the capital structure is designed so that without trading equity has an incentive

agency problems of debt convertible securities and deviations from absolute priority in bankruptcy it has been suggested that convertible debt can be used to reduce the tendency toward excessive risk taking in a firm that includes debt in its capital structure we show that the ability of convertible debt to perform this function is greatly reduced if stakeholders can trade in derivative securities with payoffs contingent on the cash flows of the firm we show further that bankruptcy courts can ensure the same result precisely by deviating from absolute priority our model explains two real world phenomena one why bankruptcy law seems to be structured in such a way as to favor equity holders and facilitate deviations from absolute priority and two why small firms are more likely to use convertible debt

reorganization in bankruptcy and the issue of strategic risk abstract the decision by creditors to force the firm into bankruptcy where bankruptcy includes reorganization is shown to involve the valuation of a lottery over cooperative games rather than a lottery over specific monetary outcomes in the absence of assumptions about strategic negotiating risk the value of creditor claims is seen to be ambiguous this paper extends van horne s model of the optimal initiation of bankruptcy proceedings to include the reorganization option and strategic risk a modified decision rule is obtained to determine the optimal solution

security pricing and deviations from the absolute priority rule in bankruptcy proceedings claims ultimately awarded to shareholders of firms in reorganization were examined for a sample of 30 filings under the 1978 bankruptcy reform act we measured the amount paid to shareholders in excess of that which they would have received under the absolute priority rule and found that this amount represents on average 7 6 of the total awarded to all claimants evidence is also reported that common share values reflect a significant proportion of value ultimately received in violation of absolute priority suggesting that deviations from the rule were expected by the equity markets the absolute priority rule hereafter apr states that a bankrupt firm s value is to be distributed to suppliers of capital such that senior creditors are fully satisfied before any distributions are made to junior creditors and junior creditors are paid in full before common shareholders bankruptcy reorganization proceedings however are leaving shareholders and junior creditors with valuable assets even when senior claimants receive only partial settlements as barrett and sullivan 1988 noted traditionally shareholders have been last in line their claims on a troubled company s assets have had the lowest priority and their impact on the course of bankruptcy code proceedings generally has been next to nil but lately the balance of power has been shifting warner 1977 provided one of the early discussions of the implications of deviations from the apr baldwin and mason 1983 pp 510 511 examined the resolution of claims in the massey ferguson reorganization and provided no support for the hypothesis that the market believes absolute priority rules will be enforced if the firm defaults on its financial obligations franks and torous 1989 analyzed a sample of bankruptcies that occurred during the period 1970 through 1984 and found that 21 of 27 sample cases exhibited departures from the apr more recently weiss 1990 examined 37 firms that filed for bankruptcy between 1980 and 1986 and reported that 27 of the cases involved apr violations

accounting earnings and top executive compensation abstract this paper investigates the role of accounting earnings in top executive compensation contracts it provides evidence in support of the hypothesis that earnings based incentives help shield executives from market wide factors in stock prices the paper demonstrates that earnings reflect firm specific changes in value but are less sensitive to market wide movements in equity values as a result the inclusion of earnings based performance measures in executive compensation contracts helps shield executives from fluctuations in firm value that are beyond their control the hypothesis is shown to explain cross sectional variation in the use of earnings based incentives

corporate performance and managerial remuneration an empirical analysis abstract economic theories of efficient compensation predict a positive relationship between executive pay and corporate performance and yet efforts to document this relationship have been largely unsuccessful in this paper we argue that previous cross sectional studies have omitted important variables which seriously bias their results using data that focus on individual executives over time we find that executive compensation is strongly positively related to corporate performance as measured by shareholder return and growth in firm sales the results are robust to the stock market performance measure utilized

claimholder incentive conflicts in reorganization the role of bankruptcy law when a firm is financial distress in most cases a set of mutually advantageous reorganization plans exist this article shows that the bankruptcy code by providing rules governing the negotiation process yields a unique solution to the reorganization process in addition the structure imposed by the code mitigates the holdout problem created by the individual claimant s divergent incentives article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

control rights debt structure and the loss of private benefits the case of the uk insolvency code we show how the efficiency of reorganization is affected by the distribution of control rights under the u k insolvency code control rights raise particular problems when creditors have different incentives to keep the firm as a going concern such differences may arise from the possession of private benefits by particular creditors which are lost if the debtor firm is liquidated the incidence of inefficient liquidations is influenced by the size and seniority of creditors claims the current u k code is widely thought to give rise to inefficient liquidations we show however that inefficiency depends upon the debt structure and whether the controlling creditor in formal bankruptcy has private benefits article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

price and volume effects associated with changes in the s p 500 list new evidence for the existence of price pressures attempts to identify price pressures caused by large transactions may be inconclusive if the transactions convey new information to the market this problem is addressed in an examination of prices and volume surrounding changes in the composition of the s p 500 since these changes cause some investors to adjust their holdings of the affected securities and since it is unlikely that the changes convey information about the future prospects of these securities they provide an excellent opportunity to study price pressures the results are consistent with the price pressure hypothesis immediately after an addition is announced prices increase by more than 3 percent this increase is nearly fully reversed after 2 weeks the efficient market hypothesis emh predicts that security prices reflect all publicly available information therefore one corollary of the emh is that you can sell or buy large blocks of stock at close to the market price as long as you can convince other investors that you have no private information 1 this statement assumes that securities are near perfect substitutes for each other if so the excess demand for a single security will be very elastic and the sale or purchase of a large number of shares will have no impact on price in contrast to the emh scholes 8 kraus and stoll 5 hess and frost 4 and others propose two hypotheses which predict that a large stock sale purchase will cause the price to decrease increase even if no new information is associated with the transaction the imperfect substitutes hypothesis ish also known as the distribution effect hypothesis assumes that securities are not close substitutes for each other and hence that long term demand is less than perfectly elastic under this hypothesis equilibrium prices change when demand curves shift to eliminate excess demand price reversals are not expected because the new price reflects a new equilibrium distribution of security holders the price pressure hypothesis pph assumes that investors who accommodate demand shifts must be compensated for the transaction costs and portfolio risks that they bear when they agree to immediately buy or sell securities which they otherwise would not trade these passive suppliers of liquidity are attracted by immediate price drops rises associated with large sales purchases they are compensated for their liquidity service when prices rise drop to their fullinformation levels the pph like the emh assumes that long run demand is

the effect of accounting procedure changes on ceos cash salary and bonus compensation abstract this paper examines the effect of accounting procedure changes on cash salary and bonus compensation to ceos we estimate whether there is an adjustment to the statistical relation between compensation and corporate earnings following changes that lower earnings fifo to lifo inventory valuation and that raise earnings accelerated to straight line depreciation the results indicate that 1 subsequent to these changes salary and bonus payments are based on reported earnings rather than earnings under the original accounting method and 2 the potential compensation effect of the changes is small compared to the effect of economy or industry wide changes in compensation

an empirical analysis of prepackaged bankruptcies abstract we provide comprehensive data on the attributes and outcomes of the restructuring process for a sample of 49 financially distressed firms that restructured by means a prepackaged bankruptcy our findings complement previous research on out of court restructurings and traditional chapter 11 filings by most measures including the time spent in reorganization the direct fees as a percent of pre distress assets the recovery rates by creditors and the incidence of violation of absolute priority of claimholders we find that prepacks lie between out of court restructurings and traditional chapter 11 bankruptcies

resolution of financial distress under chapter 11 abstract we develop a contingent claims model for a firm in financial distress with a formal account for renegotiations under the u s bankruptcy procedure known as chapter 11 shareholders and two classes of creditors senior and junior alternatively propose a reorganization plan subject to a vote the bankruptcy judge can intervene in any renegotiation round to impose a plan the multiple stage bargaining process is solved in a non cooperative game theory setting the calibrated model yields the liquidation rate the duration of chapter 11 and the frequency of deviations from the absolute priority rule which are consistent with empirical evidence

do demand curves for stocks slope down since september 1976 stocks newly included into the standard and poor s 500 index have earned a significant positive abnormal return at the announcement of the inclusion this return does not disappear for at least ten days after the inclusion the returns are positively related to measures of buying by index funds consistent with the hypothesis that demand curves for stocks slope down the returns are not related to s p s bond ratings which is inconsistent with a plausible version of the hypothesis that inclusion is a certification of the quality of the stock

systemic risk in financial systems we consider default by firms that are part of a single clearing mechanism the obligations of all firms within the system are determined simultaneously in a fashion consistent with the priority of debt claims and the limited liability of equity we first show via a fixed point argument that there always exists a clearing payment vector that clears the obligations of the members of the clearing system under mild regularity conditions this clearing vector is unique next we develop an algorithm that both clears the financial system in a computationally efficient fashion and provides information on the systemic risk faced by the individual system firms finally we produce qualitative comparative statics for financial systems these comparative statics imply that in contrast to single firm results even unsystematic nondissipative shocks to the system will lower the total value of the system and may lower the value of the equity of some of the individual system firms

presidential address asset price dynamics with slow moving capital i describe asset price dynamics caused by the slow movement of investment capital to trading opportunities the pattern of price responses to supply or demand shocks typically involves a sharp reaction to the shock and a subsequent and more extended reversal the amplitude of the immediate price impact and the pattern of the subsequent recovery can reflect institutional impediments to immediate trade such as search costs for trading counterparties or time to raise capital by intermediaries i discuss special impediments to capital formation during the recent financial crisis that caused asset price distortions which subsided afterward after presenting examples of price reactions to supply shocks in normal market settings i offer a simple illustrative model of price dynamics associated with slow moving capital due to the presence of inattentive investors i address the implications for asset price dynamics of the apparent slow movement of investment capital to trading opportunities the arrival of new capital to an investment opportunity can be delayed by fractions of a second in some markets for example an electronic limit order book market for equities or by months in other markets such as that for catastrophe risk insurance accordingly prices respond to supply or demand shocks with a sharp reaction because of the relatively small subset of capital and thus risk bearing capacity that is immediately available to absorb a shock on short notice such a price impact is substantially reversed over time as additional capital becomes available the amplitude of the immediate price impact and the pattern of the subsequent recovery can reflect many sorts of attention costs to trade as well as institutional impediments to capital movement such as search costs for trading

conflicts of interest and market illiquidity in bankruptcy auctions theory and tests i develop and estimate a model of cash auction bankruptcy using data on 205 swedish firms the results challenge arguments that cash auctions as compared to reorganizations are immune to conflicts of interest between claimholders but lead to inefficient liquidations i show that a sale of the assets back to incumbent management is a common bankruptcy outcome sale backs are more likely when they favor the bank at the expense of other creditors on the other hand inefficient liquidations are frequently avoided through sale backs when markets are illiquid that is when industry indebtedness is high and the firm has few nonspecific assets the problem of designing an efficient bankruptcy law has received considerable attention in the last decade much of the debate has centered around the optimality of two different stylized bankruptcy procedures cash auctions such as the u s chapter 7 code and structured bargaining represented by the u s chapter 11 reorganization code recently several european countries including france germany and great britain have changed their bankruptcy regulation by introducing reorganization procedures similar to chapter 11 at the same time the chapter 11 code has been criticized by academics including baird 1986 emphasizing that the bargaining procedure frequently results in long and wasteful negotiations these critics argue that chapter 11 should instead be replaced with a mandatory auction procedure other researchers such as aghion hart and moore 1992 and shleifer and vishny 1992 have pointed out that a cash auction is likely to suffer from considerable inefficiencies arising from transaction costs and market illiquidity the nature and costs of the chapter 11 procedure are

sequential bargaining with incomplete information this paper describes a simple two person two period bargaining game and solves it using the concept of perfect bayesian equilibrium in which the actions of each player convey information which is used by his opponent the paper examines the effects of changes in bargaining costs the size of the contract zone and the length of the bargaining process on such aspects of the solution as the probability of impasse and the likelihood of concessions the combination of information transfer and the lack of pre commitment embodied in perfectness yields many surprising results common perceptions about the effects of parameter changes on bargaining processes are suspect and should be checked in the particular game being discussed

an explanation for accounting income smoothing it is widely believed that corporate managers often engage in income smoothing taking actions to dampen fluctuations in their firms publicly reported net income one reason given for this is that managers think that investors pay more for a firm with a smoother income stream see ronen and sadan 1981 while there have been many empirical studies attempting to document whether or not income smoothing actually occurs there has been little exploration of why a manager might rationally want to smooth his firm s income explaining why smoothing might be observed and how it can result in an increased stock price is the focus of this paper in two recent studies lambert 1984 and dye 1988 demonstrate in agency settings that a risk averse manager who is precluded from borrowing and lending in the capital markets has an incentive to smooth his firm s reported income in this paper in contrast it is shown that within a market setting an incentive exists for a manager to smooth income that is independent of either risk aversion or restricted access to capital markets the market setting is also useful in that it allows for the analysis of the effect of income smoothing on stock prices it is shown here that if a manager can choose which of two periods to recognize certain income he may prefer the choice that is expected to

the holdout problem and urban sprawl experimental evidence abstract conventional wisdom as well as economic theory suggests it is more costly to reassemble fragmented land due to transactions costs and strategic bargaining costs both costs are expected to increase with the number of sellers inefficient allocation of land resources may result including property entropy parisi 2002 urban sprawl miceli and sirmans 2007 and deteriorating inner cities given the difficulty of observing actual values attached by buyers and sellers to land little empirical evidence exists to support the conventional wisdom and theoretical work we use experimental methods to examine transactions costs and strategic bargaining costs in a land assembly market game with one buyer 1 4 sellers and complementary exchanges the buyer s final earnings vary inversely with the number of sellers ceteris paribus indicating an incentive to purchase consolidated land delay costs reduce holdout but result in lower payoffs for both buyers and sellers competition between sellers reduces holdout and the buyer s total purchase price