Abstract
A firm raises capital from multiple investors to fund a project. The project succeeds only if the capital raised exceeds a stochastic threshold, and the firm offers payments contingent on success. We study the firm’s optimal unique-implementation scheme, namely the scheme that guarantees the firm the maximum payoff. This scheme treats investors differently based on size. We show that if the distribution of the investment threshold is log-concave, larger investors receive higher net returns than smaller investors. Moreover, higher dispersion in investor size increases the firm’s payoff. Our analysis highlights strategic risk as an important potential driver of inequality.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 889-921 |
Number of pages | 33 |
Journal | American Economic Review |
Volume | 110 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2020 |
Bibliographical note
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