Optimal Financial Contracts for a Start-Up with Unlimited Operating Discretion
证明，在企业家与投资者之间存在极端不确定性时，小企业融资会完全依赖股权和无风险债务，并预测了证券定价偏低、发行顺序及与抵押品的关系。
The model presented here shows that extreme uncertainty between an entrepreneur and po? tential investors can lead to the exclusive use of equity and riskless debt for small business financing. The paper derives these results without any restrictions on the available contract space, the distribution function governing a project's payoff, or the risk aversion of most potential entrepreneurs. In addition, the model produces predictions regarding the under? pricing of securities to outside financiers, the order in which firms will issue securities, and the relationship between the types of securities a firm will issue and its available collateral. Most security design and optimal contracting papers assume (explicitly or implicitly) that entrepreneurs are endowed with a menu of projects. Securities are then issued in order to raise money and induce the entrepreneurs to select better projects, in a sense that varies with the assumed objective functions. In contrast, this paper focuses on an environment in which the very existence of contracts leads entrepreneurs to create projects that take advantage of the incentive structure presented to them. Furthermore, we assume that outsiders cannot observe project selection. This set-up characterizes a situation of great uncertainty on the part of outside investors, typical of start-up firms, some IPOs, and other hard-to-gauge investments.