Contracts and Markets: Risk Sharing with Hidden Types

I study two way effects between financial markets and other contractual agreements, such as compensation packages within a firm, or mortgages and loans. I construct a model with many Units, in which one of the contracting individuals, the Agent, has private information, while the uninformed individual, the Principal, has the opportunity to trade with those in the other Units. I give general conditions under which financial markets induce a transfer of risk from Agents to Principals. These conditions boil down to a limited amount of correlation amonug Units’ returns. Under the same conditions, I show that markets induce a transfer of welfare from the best Agents to Principals. Conversely, the information problem within firms leads to excessive aggregate risk. However, this problem vanishes in a large economy.