Trust and Law in Credit Markets

This study examines the coevolution of trust and legal institutions in a model of competitive credit markets plagued by asymmetric information. When entrepreneurs' relative payoff to productive activities versus cheating is private information, uncivic ones, who intend to cheat, can enter credit markets and be cross-subsidized by civic ones, who engage in productive activities. To exploit this benefit, uncivic entrepreneurs demand weak legal enforcement through the political process. This rent-seeking behavior interacts with the formation of trust, generating an underdevelopment trap with weak enforcement and distrust. Technological advancement may encourage entrepreneurs' rent-seeking and aggravate distrust

Ignorant Experts and Financial Fragility

We study debt funding markets in which lenders can invest in financial expertise to reduce a cost of acquiring information about the underlying collateral. If the pledgeability of corporate income is low, lenders' information acquisition enhances liquidity, but they reduce expertise acquisition because of a hold-up problem. By contrast, if the pledgeability is high, information acquisition reduces liquidity, so that lenders can extract rents from firms by investing in expertise and creating fear of illiquidity. In this case, as information about collateral decays over time, there is growth in credit and expertise acquisition, making the economy more vulnerable to an aggregate shock. These results suggest that the growth of the financial sector is associated with prevalence of opaque assets and a subsequent crisis

Ignorant Experts and Financial Fragility

We examine expertise acquisition incentives in a model of debt funding markets in which expertise reduces the cost of acquiring information about underlying collateral. Lenders acquiring expertise gain advantages in financial contracts with borrowers and extract rents from them by creating fear of information production that gives rise to illiquidity. As information about collateral decays over time, there is growth in credit and expertise acquisition, making the economy more vulnerable to an aggregate shock. This result suggests that the growth in the financial sector is associated with the prevalence of opaque assets and a subsequent crisis

Managing Financial Expertise

We study credit markets in which lenders can invest in financial expertise to reduce the cost of acquiring information about underlying collateral. If the pledgeability of corporate income is low, information acquisition enhances liquidity, but lenders reduce expertise acquisition because of the hold-up problem. By contrast, if the pledgeability is high, information acquisition reduces liquidity so that lenders can extract rents from firms by investing in financial expertise and creating fear of illiquidity. Optimal policy involves subsidizing investment in financial expertise when the pledgeability is low and taxing investment in financial expertise when the pledgeability is high

Trust and Law in Credit Markets

This study examines the coevolution of trust and legal institutions in a model of competitive credit markets plagued by asymmetric information. When entrepreneurs' relative payoff to productive activities versus cheating is private information, uncivic ones, who intend to cheat, can enter credit markets and be cross-subsidized by civic ones, who engage in productive activities. To exploit this benefit, uncivic entrepreneurs demand weak legal enforcement through the political process. This rent-seeking behavior interacts with the formation of trust, generating an underdevelopment trap with weak enforcement and distrust. Technological advancement may encourage entrepreneurs' rent-seeking and aggravate distrust

Ignorant Experts and Financial Fragility

We study debt funding markets in which lenders can invest in financial expertise to reduce a cost of acquiring information about the underlying collateral. If the pledgeability of corporate income is low, lenders' information acquisition enhances liquidity, but they reduce expertise acquisition because of a hold-up problem. By contrast, if the pledgeability is high, information acquisition reduces liquidity, so that lenders can extract rents from firms by investing in expertise and creating fear of illiquidity. In this case, as information about collateral decays over time, there is growth in credit and expertise acquisition, making the economy more vulnerable to an aggregate shock. These results suggest that the growth of the financial sector is associated with prevalence of opaque assets and a subsequent crisis

Hematogenous extraneural metastasis of the germinomatous component of a pineal mixed germ cell tumor

A 23-year-old man presented with a mass in the pineal region and obstructive hydrocephalus. A neuroendoscopic biopsy for the lesion, ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunting, and focal irradiation were conducted as initial treatment. Histological diagnosis of the biopsy specimen was germinoma. He underwent further irradiation and two tumor resections. Histological diagnosis was mature teratoma without a germinomatous component. After serial treatments, the intracranial lesion was controlled. However, 14 months after presentation, extraneural lesions were confirmed in the posterior mediastinum and retroperitoneal space. The biopsy specimen of the retroperitoneal space lesion was histologically diagnosed as germinoma. Although chemotherapy with cisplatin and etoposide was undertaken, extraneural lesions ware uncontrollable and he died. At autopsy, extraneural lesions were confirmed in the posterior mediastinum, retroperitoneal space, and right lung. Histological diagnosis of extraneural lesions was germinoma. This case was considered to be a pineal mixed germ cell tumor mainly consisting of germinoma and mature teratoma, which caused hematogenous metastasis of the germinoma component. Systemic chemotherapy and irradiation for primary lesions as an initial treatment is important to cure the primary lesion and prevent extraneural metastasis.ArticleBRAIN TUMOR PATHOLOGY. 29(4):245-250 (2012)journal articl

Natural Supersymmetry and b -> s gamma constraints

We investigate constraints from the observed branching ratio for b -> s gamma and fine-tuning in the framework of natural supersymmetry. The natural supersymmetry requires the large trilinear coupling of the stop sector, light higgsinos (a small mu parameter) and light stops, in order to reduce the fine-tuning in the Higgs sector while avoiding the LEP constraint. It is found that in such a scenario 5% (10%) level of fine-tuning is inevitable due to the b -> s gamma constraint even if the messenger scale is as low as 10^5 GeV (10^4 GeV), provided that the gaugino masses satisfy the GUT relation.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures; version to be published in PL