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Journal Article
Credit rationing by loan size in commercial loan markets
The authors present a theoretical model in which a profit-maximizing lender may ration credit to businesses by restricting loan size. Such credit rationing occurs despite the absence of differences across borrowers in default risk or loan administration costs. Moreover, the model predicts an interest rate-loan size pattern that matches that observed in U.S. commercial loan markets.
Working Paper
Welfare-improving credit controls
Credit controls are generally believed to result in an inefficient allocation of resources. This paper presents a counterexample. It displays a general equilibrium, multi-good model with spatial separation for which steady state equilibria exist in which both cash (i.e. fiat currency) and trade credit are used in exchange. Transaction costs, restrictions on the timing of trade, and a positive nominal interest rate cause the laissez-faire equilibrium to be non-optimal. A quantitative restriction on the use of trade credit can yield a Pareto superior allocation.
Journal Article
A closer look at jobless recoveries
Most analysts believe the U.S. economy is now recovering from the recession. Yet businesses continue to lay off workers, prompting The New York Times to dub this "the worst hiring slump in 20 years." Market analysts and economists have a different name for what is happening. They call it a ?jobless recovery.?> The only other jobless recovery in postwar U.S. history occurred following the 1990-91 recession. In the early years of that recovery, forecasting models based on data from past business cycles predicted that the observed pickup in output would be accompanied by employment growth. ...
Journal Article
Survey evidence of tighter credit conditions: what does it mean?
Recent survey results from the Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey indicate that, on net, many banks tightened their loan standards during 1990 and early 1991. This article investigates the implications of these results by comparing them to survey responses from previous periods.
Journal Article
Risks of identity theft: Can the market protect the payment system?
Identity theft has been a feature of financial markets for as long as alternatives have existed to cash transactions. But identity theft has recently occurred on a much larger scale. Data breaches often involve the apparent loss or acknowledged theft of the personal identifying information of thousands--or millions--of people. ; Identity theft poses risks, not only to individuals, but to the integrity and efficiency of the payment system--the policies, procedures, and technology that transfer information for authenticating and settling payments among participants. Identity theft can cause a ...
Working Paper
Liquidity constraints in commercial loan markets with imperfect information and imperfect competition
This paper presents a simple general equilibrium model of the commercial loan market in which liquidity constraints arise endogenously because of imperfect information and imperfect competition. The information and market structure generate a discriminatory interest rate schedule and loan size restrictions, which we interpret as liquidity constraint phenomena. The model's predictions are consistent with actual lending policies observed in the commercial loan industry. Further, the lender and all borrowers are at least as well off under this solution as they would be if faced with any single ...
Journal Article
Clicking with dollars : how consumers can pay for purchases from E-tailers
The Internet is often referred to as the world?s largest mall. About half of all adults in the United States have made a purchase online. Worldwide, online shopping is considerably greater?and cybershopping is expected to continue to grow as more households become connected to the Internet and as improvements in mobile telecommunication technology allow wireless Internet access anywhere and anytime.> A byproduct of the dramatic increase in online shopping has been a heightened demand for convenient and secure online payment methods. Consumers make almost all their online purchases with credit ...
Working Paper
Cyberattacks and Financial Stability: Evidence from a Natural Experiment
This paper studies the effects of a unique multi-day cyberattack on a technology service provider (TSP). Using several confidential daily datasets, we identify and quantify first- and second-round effects of the event. For banks using relevant services of the TSP, the attack impaired their ability to send payments over Fedwire, even though the Federal Reserve extended the time they had to submit payments. This impairment (first-round effect) caused other banks to receive fewer payments (second-round effect), leaving them at risk of having too few reserves to send their own payments (a ...
Working Paper
The evolution of cash transactions: some implications for monetary policy
This paper considers the implications of a decreasing demand for cash transactions under several monetary policy regimes. A policy of nominal-interest-rate targeting implies that a secular decline in the volume of cash transactions unambiguously leads to accelerating inflation. A policy of maintaining a fixed composition of government liabilities leads to accelerating (decelerating) inflation if agents have sufficiently high (low) levels of risk aversion. A policy of inflation targeting produces falling nominal and real interest rates, while a policy of fixing the rate of money growth can ...
Working Paper
The effects of open market operations in a model of intermediation and growth
We examine an otherwise standard model of capital accumulation to which spatial separation and limited communication create a role for money and shocks to portfolio needs create a role for banks. In this context we examine the existence, multiplicity, and dynamical properties of monetary equilibria with positive nominal interest rates. Moderate levels of risk aversion can lead to the existence of multiple monetary steady states, all of which can be approached from a given set of initial conditions. In addition, even if there is a unique monetary steady state, monetary equilibria can be ...