Matching markets with adverse selection

This paper considers a market with adverse selection in the spirit of Rothschild and Stiglitz (Quart. J. Econ. 90 (1976) 629). The major departure from existing approaches is that we model a decentralized market that is open-ended and constantly refilled by new participants, e.g., by new workers and firms in the case of a labor market. The major novelty of this approach is that the distribution of types in the market becomes an endogenous variable, which is jointly determined with equilibrium contracts. As frictions become small, we show that the least-cost separating contracts are always supported as an equilibrium outcome, regardless of the distribution of types among entrants. Moreover, we derive conditions under which this outcome is also unique.     

A dynamic model of settlement

We investigate the role of settlement in a dynamic model of a payment system where the ability of participants to perform certain welfare-improving transactions is subject to random and unobservable shocks. In the absence of settlement, the full information first-best allocation cannot be supported due to incentive constraints. In contrast, this allocation can be supported if settlement is introduced, provided that it takes place with a sufficiently high frequency.     

Inflation, investment and economic performance: The role of internal financing

This paper studies a link between inflation and economic activity that is built on two hypotheses. First, firms mitigate informational frictions in financial markets by accumulating retained earnings over a period of time. Second, firms allocate earnings among three competing uses - dividends, current investment, and the accumulation of internal funds - and inflation directly distorts this allocation decision as well as the real value of accumulated internal funds. The model predicts that the level of inflation - both unanticipated and expected inflation - as well as the variability of inflation distort firms’ internal financing decisions, increases frictions in financial markets, reduces the level and efficiency of investment, and reduces aggregate output. The marginal effects of inflation are increasing in the inflation rate.     

Asymmetric Information and the Transmission Mechanism of Monetary Policy

Abstract. This paper analyses the consequences of asymmetric information in credit markets for the monetary transmission mechanism. It shows that asymmetric information can not only reinforce but can also weaken or overcompensate the effects of the standard interest rate channel. Crucial is that informational problems lead to an external finance premium that can be positive or negative for marginal entrepreneurs. Tight money may lead to an increase in the absolute value of this premium, implying that there is a credit channel of monetary policy, but its working direction is ambiguous.     

Entrepreneurial talent, occupational choice, and trickle up policies

We study market inefficiencies and policy remedies when agents choose their occupations, and entrepreneurial talent is subject to private information. Untalented entrepreneurs depress the returns to entrepreneurship because of adverse selection. The severity of this problem depends on the outside option of entrepreneurs, which is working for wages. This links credit, product and labor markets. A rise in wages reduces the adverse selection problem. These multimarket interactions amplify productivity shocks and may generate multiple equilibria. If it is impossible to screen entrepreneurs then all agents unanimously support a tax on entrepreneurs that drives out the less talented ones. However, if screening is possible, e.g., if wealthy entrepreneurs can provide collateral for their loans, then wealthy entrepreneurs do not support surplus enhancing taxes.     

Financial opening, deposit insurance, and risk in a model of banking competition

We study the impact of competition on banks’ risk-taking behavior under different assumptions about deposit insurance and the dissemination of information. While financial opening increases banks’ riskiness, a risk-based deposit insurance or, alternatively, the public disclosure of financial information, are likely to mitigate this effect. Moreover, the limiting cases of uninsured but fully informed depositors, and risk-based full deposit insurance, yield the same equilibrium risk level. Although the welfare consequences of increased competition depend on its impact on risk, financial opening unambiguously improves welfare as we approach the limiting cases.     

A methodology for constructing a financial systemic stress index: An application to Greece

The paper develops a financial systemic stress index (FSSI) for Greece. We present a novel methodology for constructing and evaluating a systemic stress index which i) adopts the suggestion of Hollo et al. (2012) [“CISS — A ‘Composite Indicator of Systemic Stress’ in the Financial System” ECB working paper] to incorporate time-varying correlations between different market segments, but uses a multivariate GARCH approach which is able to capture abrupt changes in correlations, shown to be a prerequisite for correctly identifying financial crises, ii) utilizes both market and balance sheet data which is a novel feature for systemic stress indicators and iii) evaluates the FSSI utilizing the results of a survey, conducted among financial experts, in order to construct a benchmark chronology of financial crises for Greece, which in turn is used to investigate whether changes in the FSSI are good leading indicators for financial crises. The results show that the FSSI is able to provide a precise periodization of crises. Our findings suggest that accurate depiction of the systematic nature of stress is pivotal in order to provide proper policy guidance with respect to financial crisis identification.     

Asymmetric group loans,non-assortative matching and adverse selection

This paper shows that an asymmetric group debt contract, where one borrower co-signs for another, but not vice versa, leads to heterogeneous matching. The analysis suggests that micro finance organizations can achieve the first best by offering asymmetric group contracts.     

How equilibrium prices reveal information in a time series model with disparately informed, competitive traders

Accommodating asymmetric information in a dynamic asset pricing model is technically challenging due to the problems associated with higher-order expectations. That is, rational investors are forced into a situation where they must forecast the forecasts of other agents. In a dynamic setting, this problem telescopes into the infinite future and the dimension of the relevant state space approaches infinity. By using the frequency domain approach of Whiteman [Linear Rational Expectations Models: A User's Guide, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1983] and Kasa [Forecasting the forecasts of others in the frequency domain, Rev. Econ. Dynam. 3 (2000) 726-756], this paper demonstrates how information structures previously believed to preserve asymmetric information in equilibrium, converge to a symmetric information, rational expectations equilibrium. The revealing aspect of the price process lies in the invertibility of the observed state space, which makes it possible for agents to infer the economically fundamental shocks and thus eliminating the need to forecast the forecasts of others.     

What broad banks do, and markets don’t: Cross-subsidization

We show that interbank markets are a poor substitute for “broad” banks that operate across regions or sectors. In the presence of regional or sectoral asset and liquidity shocks, interbank markets can distribute liquidity efficiently, but fail to respond efficiently to asset shocks. Broad banks can condition on the joint distribution of both shocks and, hence, achieve an efficient internal allocation of capital. This allocation involves the cross-subsidization of loans across regions or sectors. Compared to regional banks that are linked through well-functioning interbank markets, broad banks lead to higher levels of aggregate investment, higher output, and less fluctuations within regions. However, broad banks generate endogenously aggregate uncertainty.     

Merger negotiations and ex-post regret

We consider a setting in which two potential merger partners each possess private information pertaining both to the profitability of the merged entity and to stand-alone profits, and we investigate the extent to which this private information makes ex-post regret an unavoidable phenomenon in merger negotiations. To this end, we consider ex-post incentive compatible mechanisms, which use both players' reports to determine whether or not a merger will take place and what each player will earn in each case. When the outside option of at least one player is known, the efficient merger decision can be implemented by such a mechanism under plausible budget-balance requirements. When neither outside option is known, we show that the potential for regret-free implementation is much more limited, unless the budget balance condition is relaxed to permit money-burning in the case of false reports.     

Implementing efficient allocations in a model of financial intermediation

In a finite-trader version of the Diamond and Dybvig (J. Polit. Econ. 91 (1983) 401) model, the ex ante efficient allocation is implementable by a direct mechanism (i.e., each trader announces the type of his own ex post preference) in which truthful revelation is the strictly dominant strategy for each trader. When the model is modified by formalizing the sequential-service constraint (cf. Wallace (Fed. Reserve Bank Minneapolis Quart. Rev. 12 (1988) 3)), the truth-telling equilibrium implements the symmetric, ex ante efficient allocation with respect to iterated elimination of strictly dominated strategies.     

Information acquisition and full surplus extraction

It is well known that when agents' types are correlated, the mechanism designer can extract the entire surplus. This creates an incentive for agents to acquire information about other agents' types. Robust lotteries (are payment schemes that) support full extraction and partially robust lotteries support efficient implementation in the presence of information acquisition opportunities. Necessary and sufficient conditions for existence of robust and partially robust lotteries are derived. If an agent's information signal spans other agents' types then robust lotteries do not exist. However, if all agents report their signal realizations then robust lotteries exist in an extended type space.     

ENDOGENOUS SELECTION OF PRODUCERS,ASSET PRICES,AND PRODUCTIVITY SLOWDOWN*

This paper presents a simple heterogeneous agent model to show that shocks that reduce aggregate borrowing capacity of producers under borrowing constraints cause endogenous productivity slowdowns through declines in asset prices and biased selections of producers. These dynamics of the model replicate the qualitative features of the Japanese economy during the 1990s, including a decline in the within effect in total factor productivity growth decomposition as well as default on mortgage loans. Policy experiments demonstrate that foreclosure restrictions already in place mitigate an exogenous productivity slowdown, but that a tightening of foreclosure restrictions causes an endogenous productivity slowdown.     

Correlated information, mechanism design and informational rents

Crémer and McLean (Econometrica 56 (1988) 1247-1258) obtain a sufficient and necessary condition for full surplus extraction in Bayesian-Nash equilibrium—the rank condition, which McAfee and Reny (Econometrica 60(2) (1992) 395-421) later generalize for continuous type spaces. This paper shows that, if the principal does not know how noisy is the agent's signal—or equivalently, when signals available to an agent can be ranked by Blackwell's informativeness and, an agent's informativeness is independent of others’ information, the rank condition fails to hold. Conversely, when rank condition fails and informational rents are left to an agent, the model can be interpreted as if, the principal were uncertain about the informativeness of the agent's signal.     

Modelling countervailing incentives in adverse selection models: A synthesis

This paper is concerned with countervailing incentives in the adverse selection problems that typically arise in principal-agent relationships when the agent has private information. These incentives are present when the agent is tempted to either overstate or understate his private information depending upon the specific realization of his type. These problems were first analyzed by Lewis and Sappington (1989) and have been characterized and extended by Maggi and Rodríguez-Clare (1995a) and Jullien (2000). In this paper we propose a simple method of characterizing countervailing incentives in which the key element is the analysis of the properties of the full information problem. Our method for solving the principal problem, once identified the presence of countervailing incentives, follows closely the Baron’s (1989) approach, which does not require using optimal control theory. The methodology we present can be easily applied to many different economic settings. For example, in health economics, an insurer (or a hospital manager) might act as a principal and a physician as an agent. In labor settings, an employer may play the role of principal and a worker may act as the agent. In regulated industries, the regulatory agency might act as a principal designing incentive schemes for firms (the agents). In environmental regulation or resource exploitation, the principal might be an international agency dealing with national governments or firms.     

An equilibrium analysis of information aggregation and fluctuations in markets with discrete decisions

This paper shows how the interaction between decentralized information gathering and discreteness of investment decisions at the individual level can generate random fluctuations in aggregate investment that involve occasionally large allocation errors. This interaction is illustrated in a model in which private information is costly to acquire and prices reveal information. The unique rational expectations equilibrium outcome of the model is shown to always be noisy and characterized by investment levels which may be high simply because uninformed investors are buying under the impression that the high price is a signal of good investment opportunities.     

Reporting bias in incomplete information model

Company financial reports are likely to be systematically biased. In this paper, we extend the Duffie and Lando (2001) model with a skewness correction which can account for both random and directional components of reporting noise.     

On the optimality of not allocating

We show that the commitment to not allocate may be exploited by a seller/social planner to increase the expected social surplus that can be achieved in the sale of an indivisible unit.