Personal bankruptcies in the United States have increased dramatically, rising from 1.4 per thousand working age population in 1970 to 8.5 in 2002. We use a heterogeneous agent life-cycle model with competitive financial intermediaries who can observe households' earnings, age and current asset...

When limited commitment hinders unsecured credit, assets help by serving as collateral. We study models where assets differ in pledgability - the extent to which they can be used to secure loans - and hence liquidity. Although many previous analyses of imperfect credit focus on producers, we...

New security designs, improvements in computer telecommunications technology and advances in the theory of finance have led to revolutionary changes in the structure of financial markets and institutions. This paper provides a functional perspective on the dynamics of institutional change and...

This paper examines the problem of measuring the growth of a monetary aggregate in the presence of innovations in financial markets and changes in the relationship between individual assets and output. We propose constructing a monetary aggregate so that it is a good leading indicator of nominal...

Security baskets and index-lined securities are securities whose values are functions of the cash flows or values of other assets. Creation of these "composite" securities would seem to be redundant since investors can cost1ess1y replicate them. In this paper we study the existence and optimal...

This paper discusses recent developments in U.S. financial markets and provides an economic analysis of why various recent financial innovations have occurred. This will not only provide us with s better understanding of existing financial markets in the United States and why they have been...

Pension funds have played a critical role in the evolution of the markets for debt and equity securities and their derivatives in the U.S. over the last 15 years. The new securities and markets can largely be explained as responses to the investment demands of pension funds in an environment of...

The central theme of this paper is that financial innovation has become a major force effecting the United States and other developed economies. The common features of the process include product innovation, securitization, liberalization of domestic financial market practices, globalization of...

The European Currency Unit (ECU) was officially introduced in March 1979 and has joined the ranks of innovative financial products that are rapidly appearing. The purpose of the paper is to explore the properties of the ECU and analyze those characteristics of the ECU, and products denominated...

This paper presents an empirical test of the proposition that control of a monetary aggregate will generate a rise in its velocity.The test is carried out utilizing the Canadian experience of controlling Ml growth from 1975:3 to 1982:3. Section One of the paper presents evidence of the...