This paper is addressed to the selection of an optimal mix of electricity generating plants. The focus is on the problem of uncertainty with respect to the date of availability of breeder nuclear reactors. Sequential probabilistic linear programming is employed. This makes it possible to optimize the mix of fossil, nuclear, and peaking plants to be installed during the 1980's -- assuming that breeder technology will become available at some randomly determined later date. The model allows for the effects of exhausting our reserves of uranium ore. The exhaustion of these resources does not lead to disaster in the 21st century for an economy or a world with a backstop technology such as coal-fired electricity plants. There seems to be a low value of information on the breeder availability date, for the initial policy is rather insensitive to this date. This conclusion holds not only when future demands are taken as fixed parameters, but also when they are dependent upon the price of electricity. On environmental grounds (climate changes radioactivity hazards, air and water pollution), there may be good reasons to slow the rate of growth of electricity demand. These are quite different issues than exhausting the resources of low-cost uranium ore. If our numerical assumptions are correct, it is not optimal to slow down the electricity growth rate up to 1990 just because of possible delays in the arrival of the breeder and hence a rapid rise in the price of uranium. For the year 2000, the decision on demands can be deferred until the time arrives to make capital investment decisions for the decade following 1990. By that point, some of the breeder's uncertainties will have been resolved.

We propose a model in which banks are exposed to the risk of contagion through their portfolio of loans. We show that a solvency problem in one bank can be transmitted to another if they lend to the same borrower. The novelty is that the channel for the transmission involves banks’ monitoring incentives. The intensity with which all banks monitor a common borrower is reduced when one of the banks suffers a solvency shock. The reduced effort intensity affects the borrower's probability of success and creates a contagion (endogenous correlation) from the balance-sheet of the affected bank to the balance-sheet of the other banks lending to the same borrower. Banks hit by a solvency shock have lower incentives to monitor borrowers because less is left after paying depositors. Banks not hit by a solvency shock face borrowers’ risks entirely on their own, which increases the expected cost of lending. As a consequence, they respond by reducing the monitoring intensity for the common borrower. Bank equity can mitigate the risk of contagion.

This paper focuses on pricing and hedging options on a zero-coupon bond in a Heath-Jarrow-Morton (1992) framework when the value and/or functional form of forward interest rates volatility is unknown, but is assumed to lie between two fixed values. Due to the link existing between the drift and the diffusion coefficients of the forward rates in the Heath, Jarrow and Morton framework, this is equivalent to hedging and pricing the option when the underlying interest rate model is unknown. We show that a continuous range of option prices consistent with no arbitrage exist. This range is bounded by the smallest upper-hedging strategy and the largest lower-hedging strategy prices, which are characterized as the solutions of two non-linear partial differential equations. We also discuss several pricing and hedging illustrations.

Extant literature shows that IPO first-day returns are correlated with market returns preceding the issue. We propose a rational explanation for this puzzling predictability by adding a public signal to Benveniste and Spindt (1989)’s information-based framework. A novel result of our model is that the compensation required by investors to truthfully reveal their information decreases with the public signal. This “incentive effect” receives strong empirical support in a sample of 6300 IPOs in 1983–2012. Controlling for the incentive effect, the positive relation between initial returns and pre-issue market returns disappears for top-tier underwriters, where the order book is held to be most informative, effectively resolving the predictability puzzle.

Differences among bidder type-specific outcomes of asset sales are theoretically related to differences in bidders’ valuations and participation. The lead application to quantify these relations is takeover auctions: bidders are classified into strategic and financial, and bids are available. I structurally estimate valuations from all bids. The positive difference in premiums between strategic and financial acquirers is driven by the difference in dispersions of valuations (e.g., strategic bidders’ synergies are more dispersed) and the set of auction participants. The difference in average valuations is relatively unimportant. My approach can help explain outcomes of asset sales, even in settings with limited bidder data.

This paper documents average acquisition discounts for stand-alone private firms and subsidiaries of other firms (unlisted targets) of 15% to 30% relative to acquisition multiples for comparable publicly traded targets. My results are strongly consistent with the notion that sale prices for unlisted targets are affected by both the need for, and availability of, the liquidity provided by the buyer. Corporate parents are significantly liquidity-constrained prior to the sale of a subsidiary, particularly when the subsidiary is being sold for cash. Furthermore, acquisition discounts are significantly greater when debt capital is relatively more expensive to obtain, and when the parent firm has below-market stock returns in the 12 months prior to the sale.

This paper examines irreversible investment decisions when projects take time to complete and are subject to two types of cost uncertainty. The first is technical uncertainty, i.e., uncertainty over the physical difficulty of completing a project, which is only resolved as the investment proceeds. The second is input cost uncertainty, i.e., uncertainty over the prices of construction inputs or over government regulations affecting construction costs, which is external to the firm. These two types of uncertainty have very different effects on the investment decision. A simple investment rule is derived that maximizes firm value, and is used to analyze the decision to start or continue building a nuclear power plant during the 1980s.

Dual-class exchange offers give stockholders the oppurtunity to exchange common stock for shares with limited voting rights but higher dividends. This paper develops a model to analyze the exchange decision. It shows that exchange offers can induce outside shareholders to exchange their shares for limited voting shares even though the same shareholders, in the same circumstances but acting collectively, would choose not to exchange.

Several studies of mergers and tender offers examine the changes in the value of ownership claims associated with corporate acquisitions and use the observed value changes to address the degree of competition in the market for corporate acquisitions. These studies conclude that the takeover market is competitive on the basis of the abnormal stock price changes of bidding firms, the time series behavior of the market value of target firms, and the proportion of gains that accrue to target and bidding firms. Unfortunately, none of these tests are sufficient to conclude that the takeover market is competitive. A competitive acquisition market implies that the potential gain to unsuccessful bidders at the successful offer price is nonpositive. This implication is tested using data on tender offers in which there are multiple bidders. The results appear to be consistent with competition in the market for corporate acquisitions.

This paper examines stock market efficiency with respect to money supply data by testing (1) regression models of stock returns on monetary variables and (2) trading rules based on money supply data. The evidence indicates no meaningful lag in the effect of monetary policy on the stock market and that no profitable security trading rules using past values of the money supply exist. Therefore this evidence is consistent with the efficient market model. Current security returns incorporate all information contained in past money supply data and, in addition, appear to anticipate future changes in the money supply. A number of previous studies have concluded that lags exist and can be used in profitable trading rules. Analysis of these studies demonstrates that for a variety of reasons the evidence in these past studies does not sustain such conclusions.