The competitive bid process used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to procure food supplies and transportation services for humanitarian food aid is subject to bidder gaming that can increase prices and deter competition. Additionally, suppliers and carriers are matched after bid...

The central counterparties dominating the market for the clearing of over-the-counter interest rate and credit derivatives are globally systemic. Employing methodologies similar to the calculation of banks’ capital requirements against trading book exposures, this paper assesses the...

Healthcare in the United States is the most expensive in the world, with real per capita spending growth averaging 4 percent since 1980. This paper examines the role of market power of U.S. healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies. It finds that markups (the ability to charge prices...

Despite closing output gaps and tightening labor markets, inflation has remained low in the euro area. Based on an augmented Phillips Curve framework, we find that this phenomenon-sometimes attributed to low global inflation-has been primarily caused by a remarkable persistence of inflation,...

This paper assesses the role that monetary policy plays in the decision to default using a General Equilibrium model with collateralized loans, trade in fiat money and production. Longterm nominal loans are backed by collateral, the value of which depends on monetary policy. The decision to...

We present a self-consistent model for explosive financial bubbles, which combines a mean-reverting volatility process and a stochastic conditional return which reflects nonlinear positive feedbacks and continuous updates of the investors' beliefs and sentiments. The conditional expected returns...