We develop a dynamic model of DeFi lending that incorporates the following key features: 1) borrowing and lending are decentralized, anonymous, overcollaterlized, and backed by the market value of crypto assets where contract terms are pre-specified and rigid; and 2) information friction exists...

We demonstrate that benchmark securities allow heterogeneously informed investors to create trading strategies that are perfectly aligned with their signals. Investors who are informed about security-specific risks but uninformed about systematic risks can take an offsetting position in...

We provide empirical evidence that stock market crises are spread globally through asset holdings of international investors. By separating emerging market stocks into two categories, those eligible for purchase by foreigners (accessible) and those that are not (inaccessible), we estimate and...

We analyze the impact of emerging-market sovereign bonds on emerging-market corporate bonds by examining their spanning enhancement, price discovery, and issuance effects. We find that the effect of spanning enhancement is positive and large; over one-fifth of the information in corporate yield...

Feedback effects from asset prices to firm cash flows have been empirically documented. This finding raises a question for asset pricing: How are asset prices determined if price affects the fundamental value, which in turn affects the price? In this environment, by buying assets that others are...

We propose a dynamic theory of banking where the role of deposits is akin to that of productive capital in the classical q-theory of investment. As a cheap source of leverage, deposits typically create value for banks, but the marginal q of deposits can be negative. Deposit accounts commit banks...

Stablecoins rise to meet the demand for safe assets in decentralized finance. Stablecoin issuers transform risky reserve assets into tokens of stable values, deploying a variety of tactics. To address the questions on the viability of stablecoins, regulations, and the initiatives led by large...

Financial intermediaries issue the majority of liquid securities, and nonfinancial firms have become net savers, holding intermediaries' debt as cash. This paper shows that intermediaries' liquidity creation stimulates growth -- firms hold their debt for unhedgeable investment needs -- but also...