Most US consumers are charged a near-constant retail price for electricity, despite substantial hourly variation in the wholesale market price. The Smart Grid is a set of emerging technologies that, among other effects, will facilitate "real-time pricing" for electricity and increase price...

In this paper we survey the theoretical and empirical literature on market liquidity. We organize both literatures around three basic questions: (a) how to measure illiquidity, (b) how illiquidity relates to underlying market imperfections and other asset characteristics, and (c) how illiquidity...

We study the impact of short-sale constraints on market prices and liquidity in imperfectly competitive markets in which market-makers have market power. We show that, with or without information asymmetry, short-sale constraints decrease bid prices, but increase bid-ask spreads and...

The “reversal interest rate” is the rate at which accommodative monetary policy reverses its intended effect and becomes contractionary for lending. It occurs when banks' asset revaluation from duration mismatch is more than offset by decreases in net interest income on new business,...

This paper reviews recent methodological developments in the empirical analysis of imperfectly competitive markets highlighting outstanding problems. Some of these problems are econometric; e.g. the need for a deeper understanding of the small sample properties of our estimators. Most of the...

If local public goods exhibit spillovers and regions are sufficiently symmetric, decentralization implies under provision, whereas cooperative centralization is associated with strict Pareto-improvement. This classic inference rests on two assumptions: local politicians are delegated sincerely...

The "reversal interest rate" is the rate at which accommodative monetary policy reverses its intended effect and becomes contractionary for lending. It occurs when banks' asset revaluation from duration mismatch is more than offset by decreases in net interest income on new business, lowering...