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Working Paper
A dynamic model of the payment system
The authors study the design of efficient intertemporal payment arrangements when the ability of agents to perform certain welfare-improving transactions is subject to random and unobservable shocks. Efficiency is achieved via a payment system that assigns balances to participants, adjusts them based on the histories of transactions, and periodically resets them through settlement. Their analysis addresses two key issues in the design of actual payment systems. First, efficient use of information requires that agents participating in transactions that do not involve monitoring frictions ...
Working Paper
Efficient institutions
Are efficiency considerations important for understanding differences in the development of institutions? The authors model institutional quality as the degree to which obligations associated with exchanging capital can be enforced. Establishing a positive level of enforcement requires an aggregate investment of capital that is no longer available for production. When capital endowments are more unequally distributed, the bigger dispersion in marginal products makes it optimal to invest more resources in enforcement. The optimal allocation of the institutional cost across agents is not ...
Working Paper
The poor, the rich and the enforcer: institutional choice and growth
We study economies where improving the quality of institutions ? modeled as improving contract enforcement ? requires resources, but enables trade that raises output by reducing the dispersion of marginal products of capital. We find that in this type of environment it is optimal to combine institutional building with endowment redistribution, and that more ex-ante dispersion in marginal products increases the incentives to invest in enforcement. In addition, we show that institutional investments lead over time to a progressive reduction in inequality. Finally, the framework we describe ...
Working Paper
The emergence and future of central counterparties
The authors explain why central counterparties (CCPs) emerged historically. With standardized contracts, it is optimal to insure counterparty risk by clearing those contracts through a CCP that uses novation and mutualization. As netting is not essential for these services, it does not explain why CCPs exist. In over-the-counter markets, as contracts are customized and not fungible, a CCP cannot fully guarantee contract performance. Still, a CCP can help: As bargaining leads to an inefficient allocation of default risk relative to the gains from customization, a transfer scheme is needed. A ...