Capital ages and must eventually be replaced. We propose a theory of financing in which firms borrow to finance investment and deleverage as capital ages to have enough financial slack to finance replacement investments. To achieve these dynamics, firms is ...
In this thesis we present three closed form approximation methods for portfolio valuation and risk management.The first chapter is titled ``Kernel methods for portfolio valuation and risk management'', and is a joint work with Damir Filipovi'c (SFI and ...
The need to evaluate natural resource investments under uncertainty has given rise to the development of real options valuation; however, the analysis of such investments has been restricted by the capabilities of existing valuation approaches. We re-visit ...
We build a dynamic agency model in which the agent controls both current earnings via short-term investment and firm growth via long-term investment. Under the optimal contract, agency conflicts can induce short- and long-term investment levels beyond firs ...
This thesis consists of three parts that study separate subjects in corporate finance and corporate governance. The overarching theme is ownership by CEOs and other insiders.In the first part, which is co-authored work with Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, René M. ...
This thesis develops three models that study the motivation of various agents to take on debt,
and the impact that excessive financial leverage can have on social welfare.
In the chapter "Short-term Bank Leverage and the Value of Liquid Reserves", the ince ...
This thesis studies the valuation and hedging of financial derivatives, which is fundamental for trading and risk-management operations in financial institutions. The three chapters in this thesis deal with derivatives whose payoffs are linked to interest ...
We introduce a novel class of credit risk models in which the drift of the survival process of a firm is a linear function of the factors. The prices of defaultable bonds and credit default swaps (CDS) are linear-rational in the factors. The price of a CDS ...
The industrial sector has a large presence in world energy consumption and CO2 emissions, which has made it one of the focal points for energy and resource efficiency studies. However, large investments are required to retrofit existing industrial plants, ...
Based on a dynamic model of the stochastic repayment behavior exhibited by delinquent credit-card accounts as a self-exciting point process, a bank can control the arrival intensity of repayments using costly account-treatment actions. A semi-analytic solu ...
Most firms face some form of competition in product markets. The degree of competition a firm faces feeds back into its cash flows and affects the values of the securities it issues. Through its effects on stock prices, product market competition affects t ...
In this thesis I study how firms choose their optimal debt maturity. The recent financial crisis illustrated why debt maturity is an important determinant of firmsâ capital structure and it also renewed economistsâ interest in this topic, see for examp ...
This thesis develops equilibrium models, and studies the effects of market frictions on risk-sharing, derivatives pricing, and trading patterns.In the chapter titled "Imbalance-Based Option Pricing", I develop an equilibrium model of fragmented options m ...
This thesis contains four chapters, each of which utilizes new or unusual data sources to analyze a different area of financial economics. In the first chapter, I construct a novel dataset linking individual bankers to large borrowers in the U.S. syndicate ...
This thesis examines the optimal mode of financing for banks and financial institutions. The first chapter, which is a joint work with Prof. Jean-Charles Rochet, investigates how Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs) should be financed. The ...
Estimates of intangible capital stock are of prime importance for accurate measurement of productivity growth. Aggregate intangible capital stock is usually estimated using the so-called Corrado-Hulten-Sichel (CHS) new growth accounting framework. Yet this ...
Corporate disclosure is the most important source of information about the firm for the outside investors. While some disclosure of public firms is mandated by regulation, firm managers can provide extra information at their discretion by making voluntary ...
Growth-optimal portfolios are guaranteed to accumulate higher wealth than any other investment strategy in the long run. However, they tend to be risky in the short term. For serially uncorrelated markets, similar portfolios with more robust guarantees hav ...
This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter examines whether the availability of credit default swaps (CDS) has consequences for creditor governance. CDSs offer creditors the opportunity to hedge credit risk and may impact their willing ...
This thesis examines the effects of financing frictions on corporate decisions using dynamic models. Accounting for financing frictions helps reconcile a number of regularities that are hard to explain within the Modigliani-Miller framework. For instance, ...