Systemic risk arises when shocks lead to states where a disruption in financial intermediation adversely affects the economy and feeds back into further disrupting financial intermediation. We present a macroeconomic model with a financial intermediary sector subject to an equity capital...

Banks are optimally opaque institutions. They produce debt for use as a transaction medium (bank money), which requires that information about the backing assets - loans - not be revealed, so that bank money does not fluctuate in value, reducing the efficiency of trade. This need for opacity...

Credit market freezes in which debt issuance declines dramatically and market liquidity evaporates are typically observed during financial crises. In the financial crisis of 2008-09, the structured credit market froze, issuance of corporate bonds declined, and secondary credit markets became...

This paper estimates the relative price sensitivity of individuals' choice of whether to buy computers online versus in retail stores using a new data source on the computer purchase behavior of more than 20,000 people. To estimate the degree of competition between the two channels, the paper...

This paper examines possible consequences of subsidies to R&D and to volume production proposed under the Clinton administration's flat panel display initiative. We do this in the context of a model in which firms behave competitively in the short run, while realizing that their choices of...

This paper compares the impact of new IT-enhanced technology on the efficiency of production in the U.S. and the U.K. for one manufacturing industry, valve manufacturing. There is a long-standing question of whether technological change and organizational changes have the same rates of adoption...

This paper examines two potential channels of knowledge acquisition that underlie firm productivity growth in the Taiwanese electronics industry: participation in the export market and investments in Ramp;D and/or worker training. We focus on the argument that a firm's own investments in Ramp;D...

The U.S. mortgage market links homeowners with savers all over the world. In this paper, we ask how much of the flow of money from savers to borrowers goes to the intermediaries that facilitate these transactions. Based on a new methodology and a new administrative dataset, we find that the...

I characterize the optimal financial regulation policy in an economy where financial intermediaries trade capital assets on behalf of households, but must retain an equity stake to align incentives. Financial regulation is necessary because intermediaries cannot be excluded from privately...

This paper focuses on funds of funds (FOFs) as a form of financial intermediation in private equity (both buyout and venture capital). After accounting for fees, FOFs provide returns equal to or above public market indices for both buyout and venture capital. While FOFs focusing on buyouts...