In this paper, I provide evidence that currency stop-loss orders contribute to rapid, self-reinforcing price movements, or "price cascades". Stop-loss orders, which instruct a dealer to buy (sell) a certain amount of currency at the market rate once the rate has risen (fallen) to a prespecified...

Despite its importance, the microeconomics of the international transmission of shocks is not well understood. The conventional wisdom is that relative price changes are the primary mechanism by which shocks are transmitted across borders. Yet traded-goods prices exhibit significant inertia in...

The U.S. banking industry is experiencing a renewed focus on retail banking, a trend often attributed to the stability and profitability of retail activities. This paper examines the impact of banks' retail intensity on performance from 1997 to 2004 by developing three complementary definitions...

We investigate the implications of capital market imperfections for inventory investment in retail trade, using a new source firm-level data--the micro data underlying the published Quarterly Financial Reports. An error-correction model that includes internal funds and forward-looking...

In recent years, the sales reports of major retail chains have received increasing attention as timely indicators of consumer spending. Despite this attention, a close review of the literature on chain store indexes as macroeconomic indicators reveals that there is no literature! This paper...

A growing share of international trade occurs through intra-firm transactions-those between domestic and foreign subsidiaries of a multinational firm. The difficulties associated with writing and enforcing a vertical contract compound when a product must cross a national border, and may explain...

Keynote remarks at the TCH Annual Payments Symposium and Business Meeting, New York City.

The increasing prospects for large volumes of commerce taking place over open computer networks has created considerable interest in the security and technology of open computer network commerce. In this paper, we explain how the basic encryption technology for sending secure messages works, and...