We study the role of commitment in a version of the Diamond-Dybvig model with no aggregate uncertainty. As is well known, the banking authority can eliminate the possibility of a bank run by committing to suspend payments to depositors if a run were to start. We show, however, that in an...

Bank reserves in the United States increased dramatically at the end of 2008. Subsequent asset purchase programs in 2009 and 2011 more than doubled the quantity of reserves outstanding. These events required major adjustments in banks' balance sheets. We study the evolution of reserve holdings...

Interest on reserves allows the Federal Reserve to pursue an appropriate monetary policy even with a high level of excess reserves. However, a banking system flush with excess reserves can raise the risk of monetary policy getting behind the curve.

A substantial body of literature has now developed as a result of efforts to identify the fundamental reasons for the fragility of financial intermediaries in the Diamond-Dybvig theory of banking. Many of these articles focus on the interaction between sequential service and uncertainty about...

I study the effects of inflation on the purchasing behavior of buyers in an economy where money is essential for certain transactions (as in Lagos and Wright, 2005). A long-standing intuition in this subject is that when inflation increases, agents try to spend their money holdings speedily. The...