Payments are increasingly being made with payment cards despite the fact that the cost of clearing a card payment usually exceeds the cost of transferring cash. We examine this puzzle through the lens of monetary theory. We consider the design of an optimal card-based payment system when cash is...

Channel systems for conducting monetary policy are becoming increasingly popular. Despite their popularity, the consequences of implementing policy with a channel system are not well understood. We develop a general equilibrium framework of a channel system and investigate the optimal policy. A...

Channel systems for conducting monetary policy are becoming increasingly popular. Despite its popularity, the consequences of implementing policy with a channel system are not well understood. We develop a general equilibrium framework of a channel system and study the optimal policy. A novel...

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...

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...

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 use mechanism design to study 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 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...

We describe a dynamic model of financial intermediation in which fundamental characteristics of the economy imply a unique equilibrium path of bank and financial market lending. Yet we also show that economies whose fundamental characteristics have converged may continue to have very different...

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...