Just Enough or All: Selling a Firm

B-Tier
Journal: American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
Year: 2016
Volume: 8
Issue: 3
Pages: 223-56

Authors (3)

Mehmet Ekmekci (Boston College) Nenad Kos (not in RePEc) Rakesh Vohra (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We consider the problem of selling a firm to a single buyer. The buyer privately knows post-sale cash flows and the benefits of control. Unlike the case where buyer's private information is one-dimensional, the optimal mechanism is a menu of tuples of cash-equity mixtures. When the seller wants to screen finely with respect to the private benefits, he makes an offer for the smallest fraction of the company that facilitates the transfer of control. When he wants to screen finely with respect to cash flows, he makes an offer for all the shares of the company.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aejmic:v:8:y:2016:i:3:p:223-56
Journal Field
General
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25