We use the demise of silver-based standards in the 19th century to explore price dynamics when a commodity-based money ceases to function as a global unit of account. We develop a general equilibrium model of the global economy with gold and silver money. Calibration of the model shows that...

The U.S. banking sector has become substantially more concentrated since the 1990s, raising questions about both the causes and implications of this consolidation. We address these questions using nonparametric empirical methods that characterize dynamic power law distributions in terms of two...

We uncover a large and significant low-minus-high rank effect for commodities across two centuries. There is nothing anomalous about this anomaly, nor is it clear how it can be arbitraged away. Using nonparametric econometric methods, we demonstrate that such a rank effect is a necessary...

We use the demise of silver-based standards in the 19th century to explore price dynamics when a commodity-based money ceases to function as a global unit of account. We develop a general equilibrium model of the global economy with gold and silver money. Calibration of the model shows that...

This paper introduces new techniques to obtain a closed-form rank-by-rank characterization of the equilibrium distribution of wealth in a model in which finitely lived households face uninsurable idiosyncratic investment risk. A central result is that the extent of inequality is determined...

We explore the link between stock returns and changes in market capital concentration across firms. Our theory uncovers a concentration risk factor driven by time-varying changes in the distribution of market capital. A powerful implication of our theory is the necessary existence of this...

We use the demise of silver-based standards in the 19th century to explore price dynamics when a commodity-based money ceases to function as a global unit of account. We develop a general equilibrium model of the global economy with gold and silver money. Calibration of the model shows that...

This paper develops a statistical model of wealth distribution that imposes no parametric structure on the fluctuations of household wealth. In this general setting, we use new techniques to obtain a closed-form household-by-household characterization of the stable distribution of wealth and...

This paper introduces nonparametric econometric methods that characterize general power law distributions under basic stability conditions. These methods extend the literature on power laws in the social sciences in several directions. First, we show that any stationary distribution in a random...

U.S. banking assets have become substantially more concentrated within a few large institutions. However, decreasing relative rates of big-bank growth and of idiosyncratic volatility—an indicator of individual bank susceptibility to shocks and a resulting redistribution of assets—suggest a...