We study economies where improving the quality of institutions – modeled as improving contract enforcement – requires resources, but enables trade that raises output by reducing the dispersion of marginal products of capital. We find that in this type of environment it is optimal to combine...

The authors study the design of efficient intertemporal payment arrangements when the ability of agents to perform certain welfare-improving transactions is subject to random and unobservable shocks. Efficiency is achieved via a payment system that assigns balances to participants, adjusts them...

We investigate the role of settlement in a dynamic model of a payment system where the ability of participants to perform certain welfare-improving transactions is subject to random and unobservable shocks. In the absence of settlement, the full information first-best allocation cannot be...

How well can a cryptocurrency serve as a means of payment? We study the optimal design of cryptocurrencies and assess quantitatively how well such currencies can support bilateral trade. The challenge for cryptocurrencies is to overcome double-spending by relying on competition to update the...

When people share risk in financial markets, intermediaries provide costly enforcement for most trades and, hence, are an integral part of financial markets' organization. We assess the degree of risk sharing that can be achieved through financial markets when enforcement is based on the threat...

This paper shows that the value function describing efficient risk sharing with limited commitment is not necessarily differentiable everywhere. We link differentiability of the value function to history dependence of efficient allocations and provide sufficient conditions for both properties.

Societies provide institutions that are costly to set up, but able to enforce long-run relationships. We study the optimal decision problem of using self-governance for risk sharing or governance through enforcement provided by these institutions. Third-party enforcement is modelled as a costly...

Exchanges and other trading platforms are often vertically integrated to carry out trading and settlement as one operation. We show that these vertical silos can prevent the full realization of efficincy gains from horizontal consolidation of trading and settlement platforms. Independent of the...

We show that interbank markets are a poor substitute for ``broad'' banks that operate across regions or sectors. In the presence of regional or sectoral asset and liquidity shocks, interbank markets can distribute liquidity efficiently, but fail to respond efficiently to asset shocks. Broad...