We present a theory in which the key driver of short-term debt issued by the financial sector is the portfolio demand for safe and liquid assets by the nonfinancial sector. This demand drives a premium on safe and liquid assets that the financial sector exploits by owning risky and illiquid...

We present a model of flight to quality episodes that emphasizes financial system risk and the Knightian uncertainty surrounding these episodes. In the model, agents are uncertain about the probability distribution of shocks in markets different from theirs, treating such uncertainty as...

We present a model of flight to quality episodes that emphasizes financial system risk and the Knightian uncertainty surrounding these episodes. In the model, agents are uncertain about the probability distribution of shocks in markets different from theirs, treating such uncertainty as...

An important challenge worthy of NSF support is to quantify systemic financial risk. There are at least three major components to this challenge: modeling, measurement, and data accessibility. Progress on this challenge will require extending existing research in many directions and will require...

The recent financial crisis and the difficulty of using mainstream macroeconomic models to accurately monitor and assess systemic risk have stimulated new analyses of how we measure economic activity and the development of more sophisticated models in which the financial sector plays a greater...

"I describe two amplifications mechanisms that operate during liquidity crises and discuss the scope for central bank policies during crises as well as preventive policies in advance of crises. The first mechanism works through asset prices and balance sheets. A negative shock to the balance...