We evaluate and partially challenge the 'household leverage' view of the Great Recession. In the data, employment and consumption declined more in states where household debt declined more. We study a model where liquidity constraints amplify the response of consumption and employment to changes...

We develop a dynamic model of platform economy where tokens derive value by facilitating transactions among users and the platform conducts optimal token-supply policy. Token supply increases when new tokens are issued to finance platform growth and to reward platform owners. Token supply...

We study investment options in a dynamic agency model. Moral hazard creates an option to wait and agency conflicts affect the timing of investment. The model sheds light, theoretically and quantitatively, on the evolution of firms' dynamics, in particular the decline of the failure rate and the...

I study the allocation of human capital in an economy with production externalities, financial constraints and career choices. Agents choose to become entrepreneurs, workers or financiers. Entrepreneurship has positive externalities, but innovators face borrowing constraints and require the...

The share of finance in U.S. GDP has been multiplied by more than three over the postwar period. I argue, using evidence and theory, that corporate finance is a key factor behind this evolution. Inside the finance industry, credit intermediation and corporate finance are more important than...

In this paper we argue that risk-adjustment matters for the valuation of financial distress costs, since financial distress is more likely to happen in bad times. Systematic distress risk implies that the risk-adjusted probability of financial distress is larger than the historical probability....