The collapse of Overend Gurney and the ensuing Crisis of 1866 was a turning point in British financial history. The achievement of relative stability was due to the Bank of Englandś willingness to offer generous assistance to the market in a crisis, combined with an elaborate system for...

We examine the financial conditions of dealers that participated in two of the Federal Reserve's lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) facilities -- the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) and the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF) -- that provided liquidity against a range of assets during...

Without a Lender of Last Resort for government debt, multiple equilibria in bond markets may ensue where default emerges for non-fundamental reasons. The stabilising power of central bank interventions does not build on a real debt depreciation via inflation, but on a swap of bonds and central...

This paper studies leverage regulation and monetary policy when equity investors and/or creditors have distorted beliefs relative to a planner. We characterize how the optimal leverage regulation responds to arbitrary changes in investors' and creditors' beliefs and relate our results to...

Virtual currencies are a contemporary form of private money. Thanks to their technological properties, their global transaction networks are relatively safe, transparent, and fast. This gives them good prospects for further development. However, they remain unlikely to challenge the dominant...