This paper addresses the striking ability of transaction flows to explain exchange rate movements. Specifically, we examine whether this arises because transaction flows convey incremental information about fundamentals. If so, then these flows should affect price upon their realization and...

Energy costs are included in the monthly rent of one fourth of U.S. apartment residents. Because these tenants do not face the marginal cost of their own energy use, they have little incentive to use energy efficiently. Explanations for this apparent market failure fall into two categories: the...

We find an economic rationale for the common sense answer to the question in our title -- courts should not always enforce what the contracting parties write. We describe and analyze a contractual environment that allows a role for an active court. An active court can improve on the outcome that...

We address the puzzle of what determines exchange rates by examining information aggregation in a dynamic general equilibrium (DGE) setting. Unlike other DGE macro models, which enrich either preference structures or production structures, our model enriches the information structure. The model...

This paper addresses whether currency trades have greater price impact during periods of rapid public information flow. Central bankers often suggest that expectations are at times "ripe" for coordinated adjustment, and that periods of rapid information flow are such a time. We develop an...

Is lifetime inequality mainly due to differences across people established early in life or to differences in luck experienced over the working lifetime? We answer this question within a model that features idiosyncratic shocks to human capital, estimated directly from data, as well as...

This paper provides an overview of the recent literature on Foreign Exchange Market Microstructure. Its aim is not to survey the literature, but rather to provide an introductory tour to the main theoretical ideas and empirical results. The central theoretical idea is that trading is an integral...

In this paper we consider a market situation in which initially there is an unintegrated monopoly upstream that owns an essential facility and two downstream firms. Then the market is liberalized allowing upstream entry and vertical integration. The equilibrium entry mode--sharing the incumbent...

This paper examines the Faustian dynamics of policy and power. We posit a general class of dynamic games in which current policies affect the future distribution of political power, resulting in the following "Faustian trade off": if the current ruler chooses his preferred policy, he then...

A common problem in dynamic economic theory is to determine when an increase in a parameter and/or an initial condition increases the future dynamics of a theoretical economy. This paper provides conditions that are necessary and sufficient for making statements of this type. The result is...