We provide a liquidity-based theory for the dominant use of the US dollar as the unit of denomination in global debt contracts. Firms need to trade their revenue streams for the assets required to extinguish their debt obligations. When asset markets are illiquid, as modeled via endogenous...

Global liquidity refers to the volumes of financial flows - largely intermediated through global banks and non-bank financial institutions - that can move at relatively high frequencies across borders. The amplitude of responses to global conditions like risk sentiment, discussed in the context...

Frequent, yet uninformed, fund flows in Chilean pension plans generate substantial trading in currency markets due to the high allocation to international securities. These non-fundamental flows have a significant impact on the Chilean peso, which is estimated to have a relatively low price...

This paper studies a form of liquidity risk that we call 'Liquidity After Solvency Hedging' or "LASH" risk. Financial institutions take LASH risk when they hedge against solvency risk, using strategies that require liquidity when the solvency of the institution improves. We focus on LASH risk...

In recent years, assets of non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs) have grown significantly relative to those of banks. These two sectors are commonly viewed either as operating in parallel, performing different activities, or as substitutes, performing substantially similar activities, with...

We analyze the effect of a major central bank digital currency (CBDC) - the digital euro - on the payment industry to find remarkably heterogeneous effects. Stock prices of U.S. payment firms decrease, while stock prices of European payment firms increase in response to positive announcements on...

Nonbank lenders have been playing an increasing role in supplying debt, especially after the Great Recession. How important are the distortions in the greater regulation of banks that differentially limit risk-taking across alternative providers of credit? How might the growing role of nonbanks...

The traditional model of bank-led financial intermediation, where banks issue demandable deposits to savers and make informationally sensitive loans to borrowers, has seen a dramatic decline since 1970s. Instead, private credit is increasingly intermediated through arms-length transactions, such...

CLOs fund 65% of syndicated loans, theoretically insulating borrowers from bank and idiosyncratic investor shocks. However, concentrated capital and sticky relationships expose firms to idiosyncratic shocks to insurers, the largest CLO investors. We find that: 1) insurers experiencing favorable...

In this paper I analyze the work on exchange rates and external imbalances by University of Chicago faculty members during the university's first hundred years, 1892-1992. Many people associate Chicago's views with Milton Friedman's advocacy for flexible exchange rates. But, of course, there was...