Research Database

The data and press commentaries studied in this paper call for a reinterpretation of the French inflationary crisis and its stabilization in 1926. In contrast with T. J. Sargent's (1984) interpretation, there is evidence that the budgetary situation was well in hand and that only fear of a capital levy made the public unwilling to buy government bonds. As a result, the government had to repay the bonds coming to maturity with monetary financing. Only when Poincare introduced a bill to shift the tax burden off bondholders did the demand for government bonds recover and inflation stop.

We explain why contracting parties may choose ambiguous financial contracts. Introducing ambiguity may be optimal, even when unambiguous contracts can be costlessly written. We show that an ambiguous contract has two advantages. First, it permits the guarantor to sacrifice reputational capital in order to preserve financial capital as well as information reusability in states where such tradeoff is optimal. Second, it fosters the development of reputation. This theory is then used to explain ambiguity in mutual fund contracts, bank loan commitments, bank holding company relationships, the investment banker's "highly confident" letter, non-recourse debt contracts in project financing, and other financial contracts.

In this paper a dynamic model is constructed in which labor and capital taxes are determined endogenously through majority voting. The wealth distribution of the economy is shown to influence the voting behavior, and hence the equilibrium levels of the tax rates, which in turn affect the future distribution of wealth. It is shown that the economy exhibits a unique dynamic behavior. Because of the endogenously determined taxes, the asset prices, wealth distribution, and the tax rates can display persistent fluctuations, and even limit cycles, in reaction to exogenous disturbances, or even due to initial conditions. It is also shown that "tax smoothing" does not necessarily appear to naturally arise in such a model, as the economy can display extreme fluctuations in the endogenously determined tax rates.

This paper develops a unified model of growth, population, and technological progress that is consistent with long-term historical evidence. The economy endogenously evolves through three phases. In the Malthusian regime, population growth is positively related to the level of income per capita. Technological progress is slow and is matched by proportional increases in population, so that output per capita is stable around a constant level. In the post-Malthusian regime, the growth rates of technology and total output increase. Population growth absorbs much of the growth of output, but income per capita does rise slowly. The economy endogenously undergoes a demographic transition in which the traditionally positive relationship between income per capita and population growth is reversed. In the Modern Growth regime, population growth is moderate or even negative, and income per capita rises rapidly. Two forces drive the transitions between regimes: First, technological progress is driven both by increases in the size of the population and by increases in the average level of education. Second, technological progress creates a state of disequilibrium, which raises the return to human capital and induces parents to substitute child quality for quantity.

We describe a stochastic economic environment in which the mix of money and trade credit used as means of payment is endogenous. The economy has an infinite horizon, spatial separation and a credit-related transaction cost, but no capital. We find that the equilibrium prices of arbitrary contingent claims to future currency differ from those from one-good cash-in-advance models. This anomaly is directly related to the endogeneity of the mix of media of exchange used. In particular, nominal interest rates affect the risk-free real rate of return. The model also has implications for some long-standing issues in monetary policy and for time series analysis using money and trade credit.

We extend the analysis of Kiyotaki and Wright, who study an economy in which the different commodities that serve as media of exchange are determined endogenously. Kiyotaki and Wright consider only symmetric, steady-state, pure-strategy equilibria, and find that for some parameter values no such equilibria exist. We consider mixed-strategy equilibria and dynamic equilibria. We prove that a steady-state equilibrium exists for all parameter values and that the number of steady-state equilibria is generically finite. We also show, however, that there may be a continuum of dynamic equilibria. Further, some dynamic equilibria display cycles.

In this paper we examine the evidence for two competing views of how monetary and financial disturbances influenced the real economy during the national banking era, 1880-1914. According to the monetarist view, monetary disturbances affected the real economy through changes on the liability side of the banking system's balance sheet independent of the composition of bank portfolios. According to the credit rationing view, equilibrium credit rationing in a world of asymmetric information can explain short-run fluctuations in real output. Using structural VARs we incorporate monetary variables in credit models and credit variables in monetarist models, with inconclusive results. To resolve this ambiguity, we invoke the institutional features of the national banking era. Most of the variation in bank loans is accounted for by loans secured by stock, which in turn reflect volatility in the stock market. When account is taken of the stock market, the influence of credit in the VAR model is greatly reduced, while the influence of money remains robust. The breakdown of the composition of bank loans into stock market loans (traded in open asset markets) and other business loans (a possible setting for credit rationing) reveals that other business loans remained remarkably stable over the business cycle.

Our goal is to provide a theoretical framework in which both positive and normative aspects of international currency can be addressed in a systematic way. To this end, we use the framework of random matching games and develop a two country model of the world economy, in which two national fiat currencies compete and may be circulated as media of exchange. There are multiple equilibria, which differ in the areas of circulation of the two currencies. In one equilibrium, the two national currencies are circulated only locally. In another, one of the national currencies is circulated as an international currency. There is also an equilibrium in which both currencies are accepted internationally. We also find an equilibrium in which the two currencies are directly exchanged. The existence conditions of these equilibria are characterized, using the relative country size and the degree of economic integration as the key parameters. In order to generate sharper predictions in the presence of multiple equilibria, we discuss an evolutionary approach to equilibrium selection, which is used to explain the evolution of the international currency as the two economies become more integrated. Some welfare implications are also discussed. For example, a country can improve its national welfare by letting its own currency circulated internationally, provided the domestic circulation is controlled for. When the total supply is fixed, however, a resulting currency shortage may reduce the national welfare.

Federal systems are crippled by power grabbing between central and regional governments, as well as burden-shifting schemes between regions. Existing models of federalisms assume regional diversity to account for inter-regional tension. However, these models set aside entirely the problem of inter-level competition. This paper presents a unified framework for understanding threats to federal stability. The model's n + 1 structure accomodates both dimensions of federal instability. Furthermore, this paper is able to offer a theoretical alternative to explanations of instability that rely upon regional diversity or citizen patriotism; identically selfish preferences, in the decentralized setting, can generate instability. Additionally, under certain institutional conditions, the paper offers an equilibrium that embraces the persistence of competition in a stable federation.