We attempt to explain the overreaction of asset prices to movements in short-term interest rates, dividends, and asset supplies. The key element of our explanation is a margin constraint that traders face which limits their leverage to a fraction of the value of their assets. Traders may lever...

We consider a random matching model where agents have complete access to each others' histories. Exchange is motivated by risk sharing given random unobservable incomes. There is capital accumulation and an endogenous interest rate. The key feature of this environment is that information is...

There are several models of outside money in which some inflation accomplished through lump-sum transfers is optimal. It is shown here that inflation can be optimal in a model of inside money, essentially the model in Cavalcanti-Wallace (1999). The possibility of inflation comes about via the...

(Copyright: Elsevier)

A random-matching model (of money) is formulated in which there is complete public knowledge of the trading histories of a subset of the population, called the banking sector, and no public knowledge of the trading histories of the complement of that subset, called the non bank sector. Each...

There is wide agreement that currency was not available in conveniently small denominations prior to the 19th century. Here, estimates of the costs of providing and maintaining money (coins) in 15th century Europe and parameterized versions of a matching model of money are used to find the...