3 essays in corporate finance.

Summary This thesis is composed of three essays. The first essay focuses on the link between capital market frictions and information acquisition by entrepreneurs. I show that an anti-selection problem between entrepreneurs and investors can alter the incentives of the former to invest in the acquisition of skills or experience. There are two inefficient regimes. When investors are a priori pessimistic, access to financing is restricted to experienced entrepreneurs, few projects are financed and they are on average very profitable. When investors are a priori optimistic, all entrepreneurs have access to financing, the number of projects financed is high, and their average profitability is low. These effects suggest a mechanism for amplifying business cycles. A second test models the financing of innovative projects as a sequential investment problem. A first investment generates a flow of information about the profitability of a second investment. The entrepreneur has ex ante private information about the profitability of the project, which creates an anti-selection problem for investors. Optimal contracts can be implemented using locked-in stock options and a golden parachute. They also include the timing of the second investment which is used as an instrument to signal the quality of the project. This mechanism creates a distortion in the learning process: the second investment occurs too early or too late compared to the first-order optimum. Internal financing affects the timing of the second investment. The model generates empirical predictions about the relationship between the performance sensitivity of the entrepreneur's compensation contract and the firm's investment policy. A third test focuses on certification or rating agencies whose compensation depends on the potentially conflicting interests of buyers (investors) and sellers (security issuers). By providing more accurate information, the agencies increase buyer participation but may also discourage seller participation. Sellers also take into account the probability of obtaining a positive rating. In a dynamic game, we examine how the attempt to establish a reputation on both sides of the market affects information production. We show that reputation concern can have an ambiguous effect. When the perceived reliability of ratings is low, reputation has a disciplining effect and the accuracy of ratings improves. When perceived reliability is high, agencies become lax to increase their future revenues. This effect does not require that the agency's remuneration be contingent on the rating.