Pablo Kurlat

The 'surprising' origin and nature of financial crises : a macroeconomic policy proposal

Severe financial crises in developed economies are produced by a combination of three factors: negative surprises that create uncertainty, concentration of macroeconomic risk in leveraged financial institutions and a slow policy response. We propose a policy instrument, Tradable Insurance Credits (TICs), designed to address crises stemming from these factors. TICs would be issued by the central bank and give their holder the right to attach a central bank guarantee to assets on its balance sheet, but only during a financial crisis; financial institutions would be required to keep a minimum holding of TICs. TIC policy could be carried out in a similar way to monetary policy and fits into existing institutional frameworks; we examine how TICs could have been used to address the 2007-2009 financial crisis in a faster and more systematic way than the ad-hoc measures undertaken.

Flight to Quality and Bailouts: Policy Remarks and a Literature Review

Flight to quality episodes involve a combination of extreme risk- or uncertainty-aversion, weaknesses in the balance sheets of key financial intermediaries, and strategic or speculative behavior, that increases credit spreads on all but the safest and most liquid assets. Unlike previous episodes, the entire U.S. financial system is currently at the center of the trouble, with no safe haven pockets, which may lead to greater real effects. The U.S. governments credit is still impeccable, which facilitates policies in support of the financial system. Policy must take into account incentives for behavior during the crisis, discouraging excessive prudence, which sometimes implies relegating post-crisis moral hazard concerns to a secondary role.

Asset Markets With Heterogeneous Information

This paper studies competitive equilibria of economies where assets are heterogeneous and traders have heterogeneous information about them. Markets are defined by a price and a procedure for clearing trades, and any asset can, in principle, be traded in any market. Buyers can use their information to impose acceptance rules which specify which assets they are willing to trade in each market. The set of markets where trade takes place is derived endogenously. The model can be applied to find conditions under which these economies feature fire sales, contagion, and flights to quality.