We analyze a financially distressed owner-managed project. The main results of the model are: (1) borrower default is an endogenous response to the anticipated restructuring-foreclosure outcome; (2) the lender's restructuring-foreclosure decision depends critically on the interaction between project value and industry liquidity; and (3) the lender waits for the industry to recapitalize before selling assets obtained through foreclosure. Empirical analysis of a large sample of defaulted commercial real estate loans supports many of the model predictions, including restructuring-foreclosure outcomes that are consistent with endogenous borrower default and firesale discounts that vary depending on industry market conditions at the time of foreclosure.

We analyze a financially distressed owner-managed project. The main results of the model are: (1) borrower default is an endogenous response to the anticipated restructuring–foreclosure outcome; (2) the lender’s restructuring–foreclosure decision depends critically on the interaction between project value and industry liquidity; and (3) the lender waits for the industry to recapitalize before selling assets obtained through foreclosure. Empirical analysis of a large sample of defaulted commercial real estate loans supports many of the model predictions, including restructuring–foreclosure outcomes that are consistent with endogenous borrower default and firesale discounts that vary depending on industry market conditions at the time of foreclosure. (JEL G33)

ABSTRACT A new representation of nonmarketable (NM) income is introduced in this essay. Using this representation and continuous trading, there exists a set of individuals who do not participate in the asset market and who consume at the rate of nonmarketable income derived from human capital. Because these individuals remain nonparticipants for a range of stochastic processes governing the NM income, consumption betas are not generally unique in value and the consumption‐based CAPM (CCAPM) does not obtain. However, the intertemporal CAPM (ICAPM) of Merton remains valid.

A new representation of nonmarketable (NM) income is introduced in this essay. Using this representation and continuous trading, there exists a set of individuals who do not participate in the asset market and who consume at the rate of nonmarketable income derived from human capital. Because these individuals remain nonparticipants for a range of stochastic processes governing the NM income, consumption betas are not generally unique in value and the consumption-based CAPM (CCAPM) does not obtain. However, the intertemporal CAPM (ICAPM) of Merton remains valid.

Technical analysis, or the use of past prices to infer private information, has value in a model in which prices are not fully revealing and traders have rational conjectures about the relation between prices and signals. A two-period dynamic model of equilibrium is used to demonstrate that rational investors use historical prices in forming their demands and to illustrate the sensitivity of the value of technical analysis to changes in the values of the exogenous parameters.

This paper examines asset sales by financially distressed firms. Contrary to the results for healthy firms, we find significantly lower returns to shareholders when asset sales proceeds are used to repay debt than when sales proceeds are retained by the firm. We find that asset sales proceeds are more likely to be paid out to creditors, as opposed to being retained by the firm, the larger the proportion of short-term senior bank debt in the firm's capital structure and the poorer the selling firm's investment opportunities. Our results suggest that creditors significantly influence the liquidation decisions of financially distressed firms.

We analyze myopic trader models of noisy prices in financial markets. Unlike extant analysis, such as De Long et al. (1990a), a classical equilibrium exists in our analysis, e.g., a riskless perpetuity is priced by arbitrage and its price does not vary with noise. A unique noisy equilibrium exists only when i) noise traders' beliefs are rational regarding volatility and irrational regarding expected returns, and ii) noise traders can hold infinite positions. In the absence of these strong assumptions, multiple noisy equilibria can coexist with the classical equilibrium, but these equilibria exhibit conflicting comparative statics. Furthermore, the price of a long-lived asset with risky cash flows can vary with noise even when investors are not myopic. One conclusion is that myopia is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for noisy prices. A second is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to use myopic trader models to derive implications for investment or regulatory policy.

This paper examines debt restructurings by financially distressed firms. We develop a model which predicts that, in public debt exchange offers, firms with unfavorable private information will offer equity claims to convince bondholders that the firm's prospects are poor. In contrast, offering equity to well-informed private lenders conveys favorable private information to outsiders. Consistent with our analysis, we find positive average abnormal returns around restructurings that offer equity to private lenders and senior debt to public debtholders, and we find significant negative average abnormal returns when private lenders are offered senior debt and public lenders are offered equity.

Why do the reported effects of privatization on firm performance vary so much? This paper provides new estimates of these effects and tests potential explanations for heterogeneity using comprehensive, long-panel data for 70,000 firms in five East European economies. We estimate that privatization raises measures of profitability, productivity, and growth by about 5–12% on average, but with substantial variation across countries and time periods. Analyzing heterogeneity in privatization effectiveness, we find little systematic role for firm size, financial dependence, exchange listing, or technological complexity, but important variation by fraction privatized, ownership concentration, firm quality, and the macroeconomic and institutional environment.

We consider a model of active asset management in which mutual fund managers exert unobservable effort to earn excess returns. Investors allocate capital to actively managed funds and passively managed products. In equilibrium, investors are indifferent between investing an additional dollar with an active manager or with a passively managed product. As passively managed products become more attractive to investors, active managers’ revenues from portfolio-management services fall, reducing their effort incentives. More-severe decreasing-returns-to-scale are also associated with reduced incentives and increased moral hazard. Performance-based fees and holdings-based data are all unlikely to mitigate moral hazard.