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Econometrica Vol. 80 No. 5 2012

Competition in Financial Innovation

Andrés Carvajal1; Marzena Rostek2; Marek Weretka3,2

1 University of Warwick · 2 University of Wisconsin–Madison · 3 Conference Board

Abstract

This paper examines the incentives offered by frictionless markets to innovate asset-backed securities by owners who maximize the assets' values. Assuming identical preferences across investors with heterogeneous risk-sharing needs, we characterize economies in which competition provides insufficient incentives to innovate so that, in equilibrium, financial markets are incomplete in all (pure strategy) equilibria, even when innovation is essentially costless. Thus, value maximization does not generally result in complete markets.

DOI
10.3982/ecta9837
Volume
80
Issue
5
Pages
1895-1936
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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