Cryptocurrencies are often thought to operate out of the reach of national regulation, but in fact their valuations, transaction volumes and user bases react substantially to news about regulatory actions. The impact depends on the specific regulatory category to which the news relates: events...

In this article we argue that asymmetric information can explain why seignorage is an inferior choice to debt for governments. We also argue that the Ricardian equivalence for governments is very similar to what the Modigliani-Miller proposition is for corporations. Our model is based on Bolton...

Before the invention of money (coin or paper) there was barter trading, a form of exchange without the use of a monetary medium such as coinage, paper money, or electronic cash (i.e. Bitcoin); Adam Smith (1776) described barter trade as primitive in his seminal “The Wealth of Nations” book....

The dollar's dominance as the world's reserve currency was inaugurated at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference where the agreement was signed by the 44 wartime allies, but the dollar's hegemony was solidified in 1971 when US President Nixon cut the dollar's link to gold. True, the fixed exchange...

This paper discusses the economics of how Bitcoin achieves data immutability, and thus payment finality, via costly computations, ie "proof-of-work". Further, it explores what the future might hold for cryptocurrencies modelled on this type of consensus algorithm. The conclusions are, first,...

We study time-series and cross-firm variation in corporate cash holdings over the past century. The recent increase in cash is not unique in magnitude. However, the recent divergence between average and aggregate cash is new and entirely driven by a shift in cash policies of newly public firms,...

The main goal of the present paper is to test the hypothesis that the Mexican economic boom of the second half of the 90s -which coincided with a post-Tequila credit crunch crisis- can be explained by Mexican firms with access to international financial markets financing their productive...

We propose a new methodology to identify aggregate demand and supply shocks in the bank loan market. We present a model of sticky bank-firm relationships, estimate its structural parameters in euro area credit register data, and infer aggregate shocks based on those estimates. To achieve...

Bitcoin blockchain possesses immense potential for future opportunities, well beyond its current use in financial services underpinning cryptocurrencies, i.e. replacing traditional trusted third parties with trusted machines. Despite over a decade has passed since Nakamoto Satoshi launched...

Today, the problem facing the United States is not whether cryptocurrencies are money or “thin air,” Iran's nuclear ambition, or COVID-19 induced recession; it is China's fast acceleration in becoming a game changer in the world order that the U.S. has dominated for more than a century....