Recent Developments on Money and Finance

It is commonly argued that poorly designed banking system safety nets are largely to blame for the frequency and severity of modern banking crises. For example, “underpriced” deposit insurance and/or low reserve requirements are often viewed as factors that encourage risk-taking by banks. In this paper, we study the effects of three policy variables: deposit insurance premia, reserve requirements and the way in which the costs of bank bailouts are financed. We show that when deposit insurance premia are low, the monetization of bank bailout costs may not be more inflationary than financing these costs out of general revenue. This is because, while monetizing the costs increases the inflation tax rate, higher levels of general taxation reduce savings, deposits, bank reserves, and the inflation tax base. Increasing the inflation tax rate obviously raises inflation, but so does an erosion of the inflation tax base. We also find that low deposit insurance premia or low reserve requirements may not be associated with a high rate of bank failure.

A model is presented in which banks update public records, accept deposits of fiat money and intermediate capital. I show that inside money is more liquid than outside money, increasing the turnover rates of idle capital. The model offers a simple explanation for the dual role of financial institutions: Banks are monitored and can issue nominal assets upon request, which helps them to transfer capital in sufficiently high rates and to also become intermediaries. The model shares some features with those of Diamond and Dybvig [5], and Kiyotaki and Wright [7].

We present an example of a small open economy for which small increases in the world interest rate may induce a sharp decline in output and a precipitous depreciation of the nominal and the real exchange rate (RER). Due to a costly state verification problem in domestic credit markets, combined with unrestricted international capital flows, our economy generates two long run equilibria, one with low GDP and a relatively depreciated RER, and one with high GDP and a relatively appreciated RER. The first is always a saddle, while the second may be a sink or a source, depending on the level of the world interest rate. There exists a critical level of the world interest rate above which the high-GDP steady state turns from a sink to a source. A “crisis” is identified in the model with the economy switching from an equilibrium path approaching the high-output steady state to the saddle path approaching the low output steady state. We simulate such a crisis trajectory for our model economy. In Mexico’s recent history, periods of growth associated with an appreciation of the real exchange rate (RER) have alternated with periods of sharp contraction characterized by a depreciation of the RER. Our economy may display such behavior as an equilibrium response to changes in the world interest rate.

This paper compares the merits of alternative exchange rate regimes in small open economies where financial intermediaries perform a real allocative function, there are multiple reserve requirements, and credit market frictions may or may not cause credit rationing. Under floating exchange rates, raising domestic inflation can increase production if credit is rationed. However, there exist inflation thresholds: increasing inflation beyond the threshold level will reduce domestic output.

Endogenously arising volatility may arise independently of the exchange rate regime. Private information — with high rates of domestic inflation — increases the scope for indeterminacy and economic fluctuations.

A pure endowment overlapping generations economy can be inefficient because of insufficient risk sharing. The introduction of an outside asset by a government or the existence of a clearing house can remedy the inefficiency by allowing some intergenerational risk sharing. While the typical outside asset is fiat money, many alternative financial mechanisms, such as social security, risk-free government bonds, “mispriced” deposit insurance, and income insurance can serve the same function as fiat money. Hence there are many equivalent financial mechanisms that provide intergenerational insurance. In the presence of uncertainty, there are several concepts of Pareto optimality that can be appropriately applied in an overlapping generations setting. I examine the risk-sharing arrangements associated with two different concepts of optimality, including how these arrangements are financed. The results are related to, and in some instances an extension of, the equivalence results obtained by Chamley and Polemarcharkis (1984), Weiss (1977), and Wallace (1981).

The asset pricing behavior is studied in an overlapping generations model that is dynamically inefficient because of inefficient aggregate risk sharing. The inefficiency is linked with the stochastic distribution of income over agents within a period. The introduction of a clearing house may eliminate the dynamic inefficiency, but depending on how the clearing house operates, households may only have partial insurance against income risk. Hence, the clearing house affects the marginal rate of substitution (MRS) across generations within a period and also the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution faced by a household, which is the stochastic discount factor (SDF) applied to income streams over time. The opportunity to insure against income risk is related to different concepts of Pareto optimality. The implications for asset prices and the market price of risk are derived. In particular, the matrix of contingent claim prices supporting a Pareto optimal allocation must have a dominant root no greater than unity. This is equivalent to restricting the matrix of within-period MRS to have a dominant root no greater than unity. The sequence of powers of the pricing matrix determines the time series properties of the SDF, asset prices and asset returns.

I highlight the importance of distributional aspects of money divisibility by comparing a search-theoretic model with random transfers of indivisible money balances, to one with deterministic transfers of partially divisible balances. Randomization allows price flexibility, as if money were fully divisible. Partial divisibility does not, but allows money redistributions. An example of the relevance of such ‘extensive margin’ aspects of divisibility is provided.

We construct a tractable ‘fundamental’ model of money with equilibrium heterogeneity in money balances and prices. We do so by considering randomized monetary trades in a standard search-theoretic model of money where agents can hold multiple units of indivisible “tokens” and can offer lotteries on monetary transfers. By studying a simple trading pattern, we can analytically characterize the monetary distribution. Interestingly, such distributions match those observed in numerically simulated economies with fully divisible money and price heterogeneity.

Simple search models have equilibria where some agents accept money and others do not. We argue such equilibria should not be taken seriously. This is unfortunate if one wants a model with partial acceptability. We introduce heterogeneous agents and show partial acceptability arises naturally and robustly. There can be multiple equilibria with different degrees of acceptability. Given the type of heterogeneity we allow, the model is simple: equilibria reduce to fixed points in [0, 1]. We show that with other forms of heterogeneity equilibria are fixed points in set space, and there is no method to reduce this to a problem in R ¹.

We relax a standard assumption on the matching technology in a search model of money. In particular, agents may remain in a long-term partnership as long as it is in their self-interest.With this simple modification, it is possible to support self-enforcing, intertemporal trade which resembles credit without a public record keeping device. We examine conditions for coexistence of currency and credit and the welfare gains/losses associated with the introduction of money.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of private money issue for the effects of monetary policy, for optimal policy, and for the role of fiat money. A locational model is constructed which gives an explicit account of the role for money and credit, and for limited financial market participation. When private money issue is prohibited, there is a liquidity effect as the result of a money injection from the central bank, but this effect goes away when private money is permitted. Private money issue changes dramatically the nature of optimal monetary policy. With private money, fiat currency is no longer used in transactions involving goods, but currency and central bank reserves play an important part in the clearing and settlement of private money returned for redemption.