During the financial crisis apparently centralized markets continued to function while trade in OTC markets froze. We use search-and-bargaining theory to ascertain conditions that allow trade to temporarily freeze in decentralized markets, focusing on the roles of liquidity and self-fulfilling...

This working paper was written by Chao Gu (University of Missouri), Guido Menzio (New York University and NBER), Randall Wright (Zhejiang University, University of Wisconsin - Madison and NBER) and Yu Zhu (Bank of Canada).During the financial crisis, relatively centralized markets functioned...

Are financial intermediaries-in particular, banks-inherently unstable or fragile, and if so, why? We address this question theoretically by analyzing whether model economies with financial intermediation are more prone than those without it to multiple, cyclic, or stochastic equilibria. We...