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Full-Text Articles in Corporate Finance
Too Big To Fool: Moral Hazard, Bailouts, And Corporate Responsibility, Steven L. Schwarcz
Too Big To Fool: Moral Hazard, Bailouts, And Corporate Responsibility, Steven L. Schwarcz
Faculty Scholarship
Domestic and international regulatory efforts to prevent another financial crisis have been converging on the idea of trying to end the problem of “too big to fail”—that systemically important financial firms take excessive risks because they profit from success and are (or at least, expect to be) bailed out by government money to avoid failure. The legal solutions being advanced to control this morally hazardous behavior tend, however, to be inefficient, ineffective, or even dangerous—such as breaking up firms and limiting their size, which can reduce economies of scale and scope; or restricting central bank authority to bail out failing …
Private Equity Firms As Gatekeepers, Elisabeth De Fontenay
Private Equity Firms As Gatekeepers, Elisabeth De Fontenay
Faculty Scholarship
Notwithstanding the considerable attention private equity receives, there continues to be substantial confusion about what private equity does and whether this creates value. Calls for more aggressive regulation of the industry reflect a skeptical view of private equity as—at best—a zero-sum game, in which profits are generated only at the expense of other constituencies. The standard defense of private equity points to its corporate governance advantages as a source of value. This Article identifies an overlooked and increasingly important way in which private equity creates value: private equity firms act as gatekeepers in the debt markets. As repeat players, private …