A monetary approach to asset liquidity

This paper offers a monetary theory of asset liquidity—one that emphasizes the role of assets in payment arrangements—and it explores the implications of the theory for the relationship between assets’ intrinsic characteristics and liquidity, and the effects of monetary policy on asset prices and welfare. The environment is a random-matching economy where fiat money coexists with a real asset, and no restrictions are imposed on payment arrangements. The liquidity of the real asset is endogenized by introducing an informational asymmetry in regard to its fundamental value.Money ; Payment systems ; Liquidity (Economics)

Understanding unemployment

Modern economists have built models of the labor market, which isolate the market’s key drivers and describe the way these interact to produce particular levels of unemployment. One of the most popular models used by macroeconomists today is the search-matching model of equilibrium unemployment. We explain this model, and show how it can be applied to understand the way various policies, such as unemployment benefits, taxes, or technological changes, can affect the unemployment rate.Unemployment ; Labor market

Equilibrium Unemployment and Wage Formation with Matching Frictions and Worker Moral Hazard

This paper synthesizes the shirking and the matching approaches of equilibrium unemployment in order to endogenize the wage formation process as a function of labour market conditions. The steady state equilibrium can take two forms depending on wether the no-shirking condition is binding or not. It is demonstrated that the efficiency wage approach is relevant when the unemployment rate is above a certain threshold. Futhermore, an efficiency wage is more likely when the disutility of effort is high, recruiting costs and workers' bargaining power are low, inspections are unlikely and the workers' productivity is weak.equilibrium unemployment; matching model; moral hazard

The cost of inflation: a mechanism design approach

I apply mechanism design to quantify the cost of inflation that can be attributed to monetary frictions alone. In an environment with pairwise meetings, the money demand that is consistent with a constrained-efficient allocation takes the form of a continuous correspondence that can fit the data over the period 1900-2006. For such parameterizations, the cost of moderate inflation is zero. This result is robust to different assumptions regarding the observability of money holdings, the introduction of match-specific heterogeneity, and endogeneous participation decisions.Inflation (Finance) - Mathematical models ; Demand for money ; Monetary theory

Rethinking the welfare cost of inflation

New models of monetary economies, developed in the last 15 years, suggest that traditional measures of the welfare cost of inflation may underestimate the true loss that inflation inflicts on society. According to these models, the cost of 10 percent inflation ranges from 1 to 5 percent of real income.Inflation (Finance)

Inflation and welfare: a search approach

This paper extends recent findings in the search-theoretic literature on monetary exchange regarding the welfare costs of inflation. We present first estimates of the welfare cost of inflation using the "welfare triangle" methodology of Bailey (1958) and Lucas (2000). We then derive a money demand function from the search-theoretic model of Lagos and Wright (2005) and we estimate it from U.S. data over the period 1900-2000. We show that the welfare cost of inflation predicted by the model accords with the welfare-triangle measure when pricing mechanisms are such that buyers appropriate the social marginal benefit of their real balances. For other mechanisms, welfare triangles underestimate the true welfare cost of inflation because of a rent-sharing externality. We also point out other inefficiencies associated with noncompetitive pricing, which matter for estimating the cost of inflation. We then illustrate how endogenous participation decisions can mitigate or exacerbate the cost of inflation, and we provide calibrated examples in which a deviation from the Friedman rule is optimal. Finally, we discuss distributional effects of inflation.Inflation (Finance)

The economics of payments

In this paper we provide a survey of the payment literature in a unified framework. The environment is a variant of the Lagos and Wright (2005) model of monetary exchange, where some trades occur in bilateral meetings while others occur in more or less decentralized markets. We use this basic environment to introduce alternative sets of trading frictions that give rise to different payments instruments and/or payments institutions. We investigate credit economies, monetary economies, and economies in which money and credit coexist. We also study alternative assets, such as foreign exchange, capital (equity), and government liabilities, which can be used as payment instruments in conjunction with money. We introduce banks as deposit-taking institutions whose liabilities circulate in the economy. We also provide an extension in which the process of the settlement of debt for money is modeled and the potential social costs of settlement are characterized. Finally, we investigate government policy responses to the social costs introduced by various trading frictions.Payment systems ; Money

Money and capital as competing media of exchange

We construct a model where capital competes with fiat money as a medium of exchange, and we establish conditions on fundamentals under which fiat money can be both valued and socially beneficial. When the socially efficient stock of capital is too low to provide the liquidity agents need, they overaccumulate productive assets to use as media of exchange. When this is the case, there exists a monetary equilibrium that dominates the nonmonetary one in terms of welfare. Under the Friedman Rule, fiat money provides just enough liquidity so that agents choose to accumulate the same capital stock a social planner would.Capital ; Liquidity (Economics)

Search in asset markets

We investigate how trading frictions in asset markets affect portfolio choices, asset prices and efficiency. We generalize the search-theoretic model of financial intermediation of Duffie, Gârleanu and Pedersen (2005) to allow for more general preferences and idiosyncratic shock structure, unrestricted portfolio choices, aggregate uncertainty and entry of dealers. With a fixed measure of dealers, we show that a steady-state equilibrium exists and is unique, and provide a condition on preferences under which a reduction in trading frictions leads to an increase in the price of the asset. We also analyze the effects of trading frictions on bid-ask spreads, trade volume and the volatility of asset prices, and find that the asset allocation is constrained-inefficient unless investors have all the bargaining power in bilateral negotiations with dealers. We show that the dealers’ entry decision introduces a feedback that can give rise to multiple equilibria, and that free-entry equilibria are generically inefficient.Asset pricing ; Portfolio management

Money in Search Equilibrium, in Competitive Equilibrium, and in Competitive Search Equilibrium

We compare three pricing mechanisms for monetary economies: bargaining (search equilibrium); price taking (competitive equilibrium); and price posting (competitive search equilibrium). We do this in a framework that, in addition to considering different mechanisms, extends existing work on the microfoundations of money by allowing a general matching technology and endogenous entry. We study how the nature of equilibrium and effects of policy depend on the mechanism. Under bargaining, trades and entry are both inefficient, and inflation implies a first-order welfare loss. Under price taking, the Friedman rule solves the first inefficiency but not the second, and inflation can actually improve welfare. Under posting, the Friedman rule implies first best, and inflation reduces welfare but the effect is second order.Money, Search