The welfare gain to consumers from the introduction of personal computers is estimated here. A simple model of consumer demand is formulated that uses a slightly modified version of standard preferences. The modification permits marginal utility, and hence total utility, to be finite when the...

We develop a model of equilibrium entry, trade, and price formation in over-the- counter (OTC) markets. Banks trade derivatives to share an aggregate risk subject to two trading frictions: they must pay a fixed entry cost, and they must limit the size of the positions taken by their traders...

We develop a parsimonious model to study the equilibrium and socially optimal decisions of banks to enter, trade in, and possibly exit, an OTC market. Although we endow all banks with the same trading technology, banks’ optimal entry and trading decisions endogenously lead to a realistic...

Building on the Merton (1974) and Leland (1994) structural models of credit risk, we develop a simple, transparent, and robust method for measuring the financial soundness of individual firms using data on their equity volatility. We use this method to retrace quantitatively the history of...

How much discretion should the monetary authority have in setting its policy? This question is analyzed in an economy with an agreed-upon social welfare function that depends on the randomly fluctuating state of the economy. The monetary authority has private information about that state. In the...

We study the implications for international relative prices of a simple Ricardian model of international trade with imperfect competition and variable markups, providing a tractable account of firm-level and aggregate prices. We show that both trade costs and imperfect competition with variable...

We study a market with free entry and exit of firms who can produce high-quality output by making a costly but efficient initial unobservable investment. If no learning about this investment occurs, an extreme "lemons problem" develops, no firm invests, and the market shuts down. Learning...

We present a tractable model of innovating firms and the aggregate economy that we use to assess the link between the responses of firms to changes in innovation policy and the impact of those policy changes on aggregate output and welfare. We argue that the key theoretical determinant of the...

In this paper, we build a version of the putty-clay model in which there is a large variety of types of capital goods which are combined with energy in different fixed proportions. Our principal contribution is to establish easily checked conditions under which the problem of solving for the...