[We examine market crashes in the multiperiod framework of Glosten and Milgrom (1985). Our analysis shows that if the market's prior beliefs underestimate the extent of dynamic hedging strategies such as portfolio insurance, then the price will be greater than that which would be implied by fundamentals if the extent of portfolio insurance were known with certainty. Over time, the market learns of the amount of portfolio insurance, and consequently reevaluates the previous inferences drawn from purchases that were erroneously regarded as based on favorable information. The result is that the price falls when the amount of portfolio insurance is revealed.]

We examine whether a large shareholder can alleviate conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders through the credible threat of exit on the basis of private information. In our model, the threat of exit often reduces agency costs, but additional private information need not enhance the effectiveness of the mechanism. Moreover, the threat of exit can produce quite different effects depending on whether the agency problem involves desirable or undesirable actions from shareholders' perspective. Our results are consistent with empirical findings on the interaction between managers and minority large shareholders and have further empirical implications.

We analyze a model of voluntary disclosure by firms and the desirability of disclosure regulation. In our model disclosure is costly, it has private and social value, and its precision is endogenous. We show that (i) a convexity in the value of disclosure can lead to a discontinuity in the disclosure policy; (ii) the Nash equilibrium of a voluntary disclosure game is often socially inefficient; (iii) regulation that requires a minimal precision level sometimes but not always improves welfare; (iii) the same is true for subsidies that change the perceived cost of disclosures; and (iv) neither regulation method dominates the other.

This article develops a model in which patterns in buy and sell volume, order imbalances, and expected price changes arise endogenously. The model covers cases in which the market maker is competitive and is a monopolist. Our results provide an explanation for the existence of patterns in mean returns within the trading day and across trading days.

This article develops a theory in which concentrated-trading patterns arise endogenously as a result of the strategic behavior of liquidity traders and informed traders. Our results provide a partial explanation for some of the recent empirical findings concerning the patterns of volume and price variability in intraday transaction data.