Professor M. Cecilia Bustamante at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business was an invited speaker at the first conference organized by the Association of Female Academics in Finance, a subsidiary of the American Finance Association.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — People who study financial economics regularly assume that the markets in which firms sell their products are perfectly competitive, or alternatively that firms operate in isolation. This all-or-nothing thinking is unrealistic.

Banks are the largest source of external financing for startups. Yet banks lack the expertise to monitor startups the way venture capital firms and angel investors do.

Leaders can lose their jobs for simply having the right skills at the wrong time, which can complicate negotiations for executive incentive packages.

Investors hate competition because it destroys firm value, but it also spreads the risk among many players when market demand falls.