Essays on Information and Debt

Abstract

These essays attempt to explain why debt contracts are so common, and to explore the consequences resulting from the use of debt contracts. In the first essay, “Moral Hazard and the Optimality of Debt,” I use tools from information theory to study a novel form of moral hazard, and show that debt contracts are the optimal security design in this setting. In the second essay, “Generalized Rational Inattention,” written with Michael Woodford, we develop a generalized version of rational inattention, based on an axiomatic characterization, using the same theorems employed in the first essay. In the third essay, “The Costs of Sovereign Default: Evidence from Argentina,” written with Jesse Schreger, we estimate the costs that Argentina’s 2014 sovereign default imposed on Argentine firms.