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Working Paper
Credit and the no-surcharge rule
A controversial aspect of payment cards has been the ?no-surcharge rule.? This rule, which is part of the contract between the card provider and a merchant, states that the merchant cannot charge a customer who pays by card more than a customer who pays by cash. In this paper we consider the design of an optimal card-based payment system when cash is available as an alternative means of payment. We find that a version of the no-surcharge rule emerges as a natural and advantageous feature of such a system.
Working Paper
Responding to a shadow banking crisis: the lessons of 1763
In August 1763, northern Europe experienced a financial crisis with numerous parallels to the 2008 Lehman Brothers episode. The 1763 crisis was sparked by the failure of a major provider of acceptance loans, a form of securitized credit resembling modern asset-backed commercial paper. The central bank at the hub of the crisis, the Bank of Amsterdam, responded by broadening the range of acceptable collateral for its repo transactions. Analysis of archival data shows that this emergency source of liquidity helped to contain the effects of the crisis, by preventing the collapse of at least two ...
Journal Article
Review essay on \"Privatopia\" and the Public Good by Evan McKenzie, 1994
In Privatopia, Evan McKenzie documents the history and legal structure of common interest developments, a form of residential community organization. McKenzie also looks at possible explanations for the rising popularity of these organizations despite the fact that their governing associations may impose more onerous restrictions on residents' behavior than municipal governments do. In this essay, the reviewer discusses McKenzie's explanations and adds his own based on an appreciation of the underlying economic forces that have shaped these types of communities. The reviewer concludes that ...
Working Paper
On the efficiency of cash settlement
This paper investigates the question of why banks almost always settle payments in cash as opposed to debt. Our model suggests that adverse selection with respect to the quality of bank assets may be the primary motivation underlying this practice. Banks with higher-quality assets prefer not to exchange debt with other banks if their debt is indistinguishable from that of banks with lower-quality assets. Banks with higher-quality assets prefer to sell off assets to informed outside agents in return for cash, which can then be used in settlement. Willingness to settle in cash serves as a ...
Working Paper
Endogenous term premia and anomalies in the term structure of interest rates: explaining the predictability smile
Recent studies have documented the existence of a "predictability smile" in the term structure of interest rates: spreads between long maturity rates and short rates predict subsequent movements in interest rates provided the long horizon is three months or less or if the long horizon is two years or more, but not for intermediate maturities. Accounts for portions of the smile involve interest rate smoothing by the Fed, time-varying risk premia, "Peso problems," and measurement error. We take a more nearly general equilibrium approach to explaining this phenomenon and show that despite ...
Working Paper
How Amsterdam got fiat money
We investigate a fiat money system introduced by the Bank of Amsterdam in 1683. Using data from the Amsterdam Municipal Archives, we partially reconstruct changes in the bank's balance sheet from 1666 through 1702. Our calculations show that the Bank of Amsterdam, founded in 1609, was engaged in two archetypal central bank activities?lending and open market operations?both before and after its adoption of a fiat standard. After 1683, the bank was able to conduct more regular and aggressive policy interventions, from a virtually nonexistent capital base. The bank's successful experimentation ...
Working Paper
A model of check exchange
The authors construct and simulate a model of check exchange to examine the incentives a bank (or a bank clearinghouse) has to engage in practices that limit access to its payment facilities, in particular delaying the availability of check payment. The potentially disadvantaged bank has the option of directly presenting checks to the first bank. The authors find that if the retail banking market is highly competitive, the first bank will not engage in such practices, but if the retail banking market is imperfectly competitive, it will find it advantageous to restrict access to its ...
Working Paper
Payments settlement under limited enforcement: Private versus public systems
What are the benefits provided by a payment system? What are the tradeoffs in public versus private payment systems and in restricted versus open payments arrangements? Modern payment systems encompass a variety of institutional designs with varying degrees of counterparty protection. We develop a framework which allows for an examination and comparison of payment systems and specification of conditions leading to their adoption. We relate these conditions to the design of present large-value payment systems (Fedwire, CHIPS, Target, etc.).
Working Paper
Early Public Banks
Publicly owned or commissioned banks were common in Europe from the 15th century. This survey argues that while the early public banks were characterized by great experimentation in their design, a common goal was to create a liquid and reliable monetary asset in environments where such assets were rare or unavailable. The success of these banks was, however, never guaranteed, and even well-run banks could become unstable over time as their success made them susceptible to fiscal exploitation. The popularization of bearer notes in the 18th century broadened the user base for the public banks' ...