Search Results
Working Paper
A Model of Charles Ponzi
We develop a model of Ponzi schemes with asymmetric information to study Ponzi frauds. A long-lived agent offers to save on behalf of short-lived agents at a higher rate than they can earn themselves. The long-lived agent may genuinely have a superior savings technology, but may be an imposter trying to steal from short-lived agents. The model identifies when a Ponzi fraud can occur and what interventions can prevent it. A key feature of Ponzi frauds is that the long-lived agent builds trust over time and improves their reputation by keeping the scheme going.
Working Paper
Credit access and relational contracts: An experiment testing informational and contractual frictions for Pakistani farmers
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/ifdp/credit-access-and-relational-contracts.htm
Discussion Paper
Crisis Chronicles: The Panic of 1825 and the Most Fantastic Financial Swindle of All Time
Centered in London, the banking panic of 1825 has been called the first modern financial crisis, the first Latin American crisis, and the first emerging market crisis. And while the panic displayed many of the key elements of past crises we have covered?fluctuations in money growth, an investment bubble, a stock market crash, and bank runs?this crisis had its own twists, including a Bank of England that hesitated before stepping in as lender of last resort. But it is perhaps best known for an infamous bond market swindle surrounding an entirely made-up Central American principality. In this ...
Report
Optimal Design of Tokenized Markets
Trades in today’s financial system are inherently subject to settlement uncertainty. This paper explores tokenization as a potential technological solution. A token system, by enabling programmability of assets, can be designed to eradicate settlement uncertainty. We study the allocations achieved in a decentralized market with either the legacy settlement system or a token system. Tokenization can improve efficiency in markets subject to a limited commitment problem. However, it also materially alters the information environment, which in turn aggravates a hold-up problem. This limits ...
Working Paper
Are Lemons Sold First? Dynamic Signaling in the Mortgage Market
A central result in the theory of adverse selection in asset markets is that informed sellers can signal quality and obtain higher prices by delaying trade. This paper provides some of the first evidence of a signaling mechanism through trade delays using the residential mortgage market as a laboratory. We find a strong relationship between mortgage performance and time to sale for privately securitized mortgages. Additionally, deals made up of more seasoned mortgages are sold at lower yields. These effects are strongest in the "Alt-A" segment of the market, where mortgages are often sold ...
Report
The Heterogeneous Impact of Referrals on Labor Market Outcomes
We document a new set of facts regarding the impact of referrals on labor market outcomes. Our results highlight the importance of distinguishing between different types of referrals—those from family and friends and those from business contacts—and different occupations. Then we develop an on-the-job search model that incorporates referrals and calibrate the model to key moments in the data. The calibrated model yields new insights into the roles played by different types of referrals in the match formation process, and provides quantitative estimates of the effects of referrals on ...
Working Paper
Information Disclosures, Default Risk, and Bank Value
This paper investigates the causal effects of voluntary information disclosures on a bank's expected default probability, enterprise risk, and value. I measure disclosure via a self-constructed index for the largest 80 U.S. bank holding companies for the period 1998-2011. I provide evidence that a bank's management responds to a plausibly exogenous deterioration in the supply of public information by increasing its voluntary disclosure, which in turn improves investors' assessment of the bank risk and value. This evidence suggests that disclosure may alleviate informational frictions and lead ...
Report
Consumer Credit Reporting Data
Since the 2000s, economists across fields have increasingly used consumer credit reporting data for research. We introduce readers to the economics of and the institutional details of these data. Using examples from the literature, we provide practical guidance on how to use these data to construct economic measures of borrowing, consumption, credit access, financial distress, and geographic mobility. We explain what credit scores measure, and why. We highlight how researchers can access credit reporting data via existing datasets or by creating new datasets, including by linking credit ...
Discussion Paper
The Fed Funds Market during the 2007-09 Financial Crisis
The U.S. federal funds market played a central role in the financial system during the 2007-09 crisis, because it was the market which provided banks with immediate liquidity, even late in the day. Interpreting changes in fed funds rates is notoriously difficult, however, as many of the economic drivers behind the rates are simultaneously changing. In this post, I highlight results from a working paper which untangles the impact of these economic drivers and measures their respective effects on the marketplace using data over a sample period leading up to and during the financial crisis. The ...
Working Paper
Quantifying the Signaling Role of Education
This paper quantifies the signaling role of education and measures the associated efficiency losses from asymmetric information. To that end, I model educational attainment and occupational choices in an asymmetric information environment with employer learning and socially productive education. The model highlights how occupational sorting and the pace of employer learning jointly determine the strength of the signaling motive in equilibrium. I estimate the signaling role of education versus human capital by relating differences in employer learning across occupations, which generates ...