Limited liability and non-responsiveness in moral hazard and adverse selection problems

This work analyses the optimal menu of contracts offered by a risk neutral principal to a risk averse agent under moral hazard, adverse selection and limited liability. There are two output levels, whose probability of occurrence are given by agent’s private information choice of effort. The agent’s cost of effort is also private information. First, we show that without assumptions on the cost function, it is not possible to guarantee that the optimal contract menu is simple, when the agent is strictly risk averse. Then, we provide sufficient conditions over the cost function under which it is optimal to offer a single contract, independently of agent’s risk aversion. Our full-pooling cases are caused by non-responsiveness, which is induced by the high cost of enforcing higher effort levels. Also, we show that limited liability generates non-responsiveness.

How the full opening of the capital account to highly liquid financial markets led Latin America to two and a half cycles of ‘mania, panic and crash’

Latin America has recently experienced three cycles of capital inflows, the first two ending in major financial crises. The first took place between 1973 and the 1982 ‘debt-crisis’. The second took place between the 1989 ‘Brady bonds’ agreement (and the beginning of the economic reforms and financial liberalisation that followed) and the Argentinian 2001/2002 crisis, and ended up with four major crises (as well as the 1997 one in East Asia) — Mexico (1994), Brazil (1999), and two in Argentina (1995 and 2001/2). Finally, the third inflow-cycle began in 2003 as soon as international financial markets felt reassured by the surprisingly neo-liberal orientation of President Lula’s government; this cycle intensified in 2004 with the beginning of a (purely speculative) commodity price-boom, and actually strengthened after a brief interlude following the 2008 global financial crash — and at the time of writing (mid-2011) this cycle is still unfolding, although already showing considerable signs of distress. The main aim of this paper is to analyse the financial crises resulting from this second cycle (both in LA and in East Asia) from the perspective of Keynesian/ Minskyian/ Kindlebergian financial economics. I will attempt to show that no matter how diversely these newly financially liberalised Developing Countries tried to deal with the absorption problem created by the subsequent surges of inflow (and they did follow different routes), they invariably ended up in a major crisis. As a result (and despite the insistence of mainstream analysis), these financial crises took place mostly due to factors that were intrinsic (or inherent) to the workings of over-liquid and under-regulated financial markets — and as such, they were both fully deserved and fairly predictable. Furthermore, these crises point not just to major market failures, but to a systemic market failure: evidence suggests that these crises were the spontaneous outcome of actions by utility-maximising agents, freely operating in friendly (‘light-touch’) regulated, over-liquid financial markets. That is, these crises are clear examples that financial markets can be driven by buyers who take little notice of underlying values — i.e., by investors who have incentives to interpret information in a biased fashion in a systematic way. Thus, ‘fat tails’ also occurred because under these circumstances there is a high likelihood of self-made disastrous events. In other words, markets are not always right — indeed, in the case of financial markets they can be seriously wrong as a whole. Also, as the recent collapse of ‘MF Global’ indicates, the capacity of ‘utility-maximising’ agents operating in (excessively) ‘friendly-regulated’ and over-liquid financial market to learn from previous mistakes seems rather limited.

How the full opening of the capital account to highly liquid financial markets led Latin America to two and a half cycles of ‘mania, panic and crash’

Latin America has recently experienced three cycles of capital inflows, the first two ending in major financial crises. The first took place between 1973 and the 1982 ‘debt-crisis’. The second took place between the 1989 ‘Brady bonds’ agreement (and the beginning of the economic reforms and financial liberalisation that followed) and the Argentinian 2001/2002 crisis, and ended up with four major crises (as well as the 1997 one in East Asia) — Mexico (1994), Brazil (1999), and two in Argentina (1995 and 2001/2). Finally, the third inflow-cycle began in 2003 as soon as international financial markets felt reassured by the surprisingly neo-liberal orientation of President Lula’s government; this cycle intensified in 2004 with the beginning of a (purely speculative) commodity price-boom, and actually strengthened after a brief interlude following the 2008 global financial crash — and at the time of writing (mid-2011) this cycle is still unfolding, although already showing considerable signs of distress. The main aim of this paper is to analyse the financial crises resulting from this second cycle (both in LA and in East Asia) from the perspective of Keynesian/ Minskyian/ Kindlebergian financial economics. I will attempt to show that no matter how diversely these newly financially liberalised Developing Countries tried to deal with the absorption problem created by the subsequent surges of inflow (and they did follow different routes), they invariably ended up in a major crisis. As a result (and despite the insistence of mainstream analysis), these financial crises took place mostly due to factors that were intrinsic (or inherent) to the workings of over-liquid and under-regulated financial markets — and as such, they were both fully deserved and fairly predictable. Furthermore, these crises point not just to major market failures, but to a systemic market failure: evidence suggests that these crises were the spontaneous outcome of actions by utility-maximising agents, freely operating in friendly (light-touched) regulated, over-liquid financial markets. That is, these crises are clear examples that financial markets can be driven by buyers who take little notice of underlying values — investors have incentives to interpret information in a biased fashion in a systematic way. ‘Fat tails’ also occurred because under these circumstances there is a high likelihood of self-made disastrous events. In other words, markets are not always right — indeed, in the case of financial markets they can be seriously wrong as a whole. Also, as the recent collapse of ‘MF Global’ indicates, the capacity of ‘utility-maximising’ agents operating in unregulated and over-liquid financial market to learn from previous mistakes seems rather limited.

Payoff interdependence and information externalities

This paper studies entry under information and payoff externalities. We consider a sequential investment game with uncertain payoffs where each firm is endowed with a private signal about profitability. It is shown that both over- and under-investment characterize the equilibria and that under-investment only occurs when investments are complements. Further we find that a reverse informational externality is present.

A indústria de fundos de investimento no Brasil : um estudo teórico e empírico sobre a relação fiduciária entre o administrador-gestor e os respectivos cotistas de fundos de investimentos

De acordo com dados de 07.10.2014 da Associação Brasileira das Entidades dos Mercados Financeiro e de Capitais – ANBIMA, no acumulado em 12 meses, entre aplicações, resgates e captações, a indústria de fundos movimentou mais de 11 bilhões de reais no Brasil. É um volume financeiro considerável, fazendo dos fundos de investimento importantes instrumentos de captação de poupança e de direcionamento de recursos para os mais diversos projetos de financiamento da economia. Além disso, as quebras de determinados conglomerados financeiros no Brasil nos últimos anos envolvendo fundos administrados e geridos por sociedades pertencentes a esses conglomerados colocou em evidência a importância de regras e estudos direcionados à relação entre o administrador-gestor e o cotista de fundos de investimento. De fato, pesquisa conduzida ao longo dos anos de 2013 e 2014 demonstrou que acadêmicos, reguladores e demais participantes do mercado de valores mobiliários possuem poucos estudos que possam assisti-los na solução de problemas relativos a essa relação, inclusive diante de situações envolvendo conflitos de interesses entre administradores-gestores e cotistas. Assim, diante da importância econômica dos fundos de investimento para o Brasil, da relevância dos direitos dos investidores dentro da indústria de fundos, e também em razão da escassez de estudos, este trabalho tem por finalidade realizar investigação teórica e empírica sobre a relação fiduciária entre o administrador, o gestor e os respectivos cotistas dos fundos de investimento. Dessa forma, o objetivo será identificar a origem, as características essenciais dessa relação, os riscos que ela pode trazer para o investidor e os deveres que ela impõe aos administradores e gestores. Para tanto, propõe-se avaliar a origem histórica da relação fiduciária e os fundamentos teóricos que a suportam aplicados aos fundos de investimento nos Estados Unidos e no Brasil. Com base nesse conhecimento teórico e sob o enfoque dos deveres fiduciários aplicáveis aos administradores e gestores, parte-se para a avaliação das normas de conduta contidas nas instruções da Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM), visando testar as características da relação fiduciária diante das regras da CVM. Por fim, realiza-se estudo sobre casos em que administradores e gestores foram condenados por quebra na relação fiduciária e por inobservância de deveres específicos embutidos nas normas de conduta avaliadas anteriormente. Com fundamento nos estudos teóricos e empíricos descritos, conclui-se que existem características essenciais na configuração de uma relação fiduciária entre o administrador-gestor e o cotista de fundos de investimento e que, uma vez formada essa relação, administradores e gestores obrigam-se a observar o cumprimento de deveres de diligência e de lealdade perante o cotista. Igualmente, ainda é possível afirmar que as normas da CVM de fato instituem a relação fiduciária entre o administrador-gestor e o cotista de fundos de investimento, bem como os deveres fiduciários conexos a essa relação.

Windows of opportunities and knowledge networks: implications for the catch-up in developing countries

This document represents a doctoral thesis held under the Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration of Getulio Vargas Foundation (EBAPE/FGV), developed through the elaboration of three articles. The research that resulted in the articles is within the scope of the project entitled “Windows of opportunities and knowledge networks: implications for catch-up in developing countries”, funded by Support Programme for Research and Academic Production of Faculty (ProPesquisa) of Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration (EBAPE) of Getulio Vargas Foundation.