In several recent articles, the Barro-Grossman model of general equilibrium under shortage has been modified to incorporate money demand and alternative retail sales mechanisms. This paper extends this work to allow for spillovers in deficit goods markets (modeled as feedback of black market...

Recent turmoil in financial and commodities markets has renewed questions regarding how well markets discover equilibrium prices, particularly when those markets are highly complex. A relatively new critique questions whether markets can realistically find equilibrium prices if computers cannot....

The paper proposes a new welfare-based measure to evaluate the distributive effects of public programs. The proposed measure differs from traditional approaches in two important ways: first, it is based on life-cycle considerations, since most public expenditure programs have an intertemporal...

In models with complete markets, targeting core inflation enables monetary policy to maximize welfare by replicating the flexible price equilibrium. We develop a two-sector two-good new-Keynesian model to study the optimal choice of price index in markets with financial frictions. We find that,...

The optimal provision of loan guarantees or deposit insurance is examined in the context of an overlapping generations model. It is demonstrated that even in the face of a market imperfection that precludes diversification of the private sector’s loan portfolio to eliminate risk, full...

It is challenging to explain the collapse in the price of subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS) during the Financial Crisis of 2008, using the existing models of fire-sale. I present a model to demonstrate that fire-sales may happen even when there is a relatively sizable pool of natural...

Using the IMF''s Global Economic Model, calibrated to the European Union, the effects of reform in product and labor markets are quantified for both a large and a small euro area economy. When markups in these markets are reduced, there are sizable long-term gains in output and employment. Most...

The literature stresses the importance of financial market characteristics in determining the supervisory architectures. In the real world it is not always clear to what extent market features are taken into account. We present two complementary approaches to gain insights in the above...

Loss of market access (LMA) is a central element and an exacerbator of balance of payments and fiscal crises. This paper provides an operational definition of LMA, examines the predictive power of potential LMA leading indicators, attempts to determine the likely nature (temporary versus...