Recently, the global economy has experienced recurrent episodes of safe asset shortages. In this paper we present a model that shows how such shortages can generate macroeconomic phenomena similar to those found in liquidity trap scenarios. Despite the similarities, there are also subtle but...

Firms in emerging markets are exposed to severe financial frictions and credit constraints that are exacerbated by the sudden stop of capital inflows. Can monetary policy offset this external credit squeeze? We show that although this may be the case during moderate contractions (or in partial...

Financial assets provide return and liquidity services to their holders. However, during severe financial crises many asset prices plummet, destroying their liquidity provision function at the worst possible time. In this paper we present a model of fire sales and market breakdowns, and of the...