The technological constraints on sustaining production chains have been discussed extensively by development economists, but the role of financial linkages has received less attention. In a model of recursive moral hazard for a manufacturing supply chain, we show that the structure of...

In addressing the precipitous drop in trade volumes in the recent crisis, the real and financial explanations have sometimes been juxtaposed as competing explanations. However, they can be reconciled by appeal to the time dimension of production and the working capital demands associated with...

Imperfect financial intermediation is a key bottleneck in economic development. Korea's unique Jeonse or housing repo contract channels funds directly from tenant/lenders to landlord/entrepreneurs, by-passing the banking system. In a housing repo, the landlord/entrepreneur puts up the house as...

Banks operating under Value-at-Risk constraints give rise to a welldefined aggregate balance sheet capacity for the banking sector as a whole that depends on total bank capital. Equilibrium risk and market risk premiums can be solved in closed form as functions of aggregate bank capital. We...

We offer a model of currency carry trades in which carry traders earn positive excess returns if they successfully coordinate on supplying excessive capital to a target economy. The interest-rate differential between their funding currency and the target currency is their coordination device. We...

Banks’ liquidity is a crucial determinant of the adversity of banking crises. In this paper, we consider the effect of fire sales and entry during crises on banks’ ex-ante choice of liquid asset holdings. We consider a setting with limited pledgeability of risky cash flows relative to safe...

We reconsider the role of financial intermediaries in monetary economics, and explore the hypothesis that the financial intermediary sector is the engine that drives the financial cycle through fluctuations in the price of risk. In this framework, balance sheet quantities emerge as a key...

Should arbitrators adjudicate on the basis of their own investigations, or invite the interested parties to make their cases and decide on the basis of the information so gathered? I call the former the inquisitorial procedure in arbitration and the latter the adversarial procedure. I conduct a...