Thorsten Volker Koeppl
- 20 April 2006
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 604Details
- Abstract
- 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 is supportable if settlement is introduced. This, however, requires that settlement takes place with a sufficiently high frequency.
- JEL Code
- E4 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates
E5 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
- 22 July 2004
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 375Details
- Abstract
- Exchanges and other trading platforms are often vertically integrated to carry out trading, clearing and settlement as one operation. We show that such vertical silos can prevent efficiency gains from horizontal consolidation of trading and settlement platforms to be realized. Independent of the gains from such consolidation, when costs of settlement are private information, there is no mechanism that achieves the merger of the vertical silos in a way that trading and settlement are produced efficiently after the merger. Furthermore, we show that such an ex-post efficient merger can always be implemented by delegating the operation of settlement platforms to agents.
- JEL Code
- C73 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Game Theory and Bargaining Theory→Stochastic and Dynamic Games, Evolutionary Games, Repeated Games
G20 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→General
G34 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Mergers, Acquisitions, Restructuring, Corporate Governance
L22 : Industrial Organization→Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior→Firm Organization and Market Structure - Network
- ECB-CFS Research Network on "Capital Markets and Financial Integration in Europe"
- 17 March 2004
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 319Details
- Abstract
- When people share risk in financial markets, intermediaries provide costly enforcement for most trades and, hence, are an integral part of financial markets' organization. We assess the degree of risk sharing that can be achieved through financial markets when enforcement is based on the threat of exclusion from future trading as well as on costly enforcement intermediaries. Starting from constrained efficient allocations and taking into account the public good character of enforcement we study a Lindahl-equilibrium where people invest in asset portfolios and simultaneously choose to relax their borrowing limits by paying fees to an intermediary who finances the costs of enforcement. We show that financial markets always allow for optimal risk sharing as long as markets are complete, default is prevented in equilibrium and intermediaries provide costly enforcement competitively. In equilibrium, costly enforcement translates into both agent-specific borrowing limits and price schedules that include a separate default premium. Enforcement costs - or, equivalently, default premia - increase borrowing costs, while interest rates per se depend on the change in enforcement over time.
- JEL Code
- C73 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Game Theory and Bargaining Theory→Stochastic and Dynamic Games, Evolutionary Games, Repeated Games
D60 : Microeconomics→Welfare Economics→General
G10 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→General
H41 : Public Economics→Publicly Provided Goods→Public Goods
K42 : Law and Economics→Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior→Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
- 1 October 2003
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 282Details
- Abstract
- Societies provide institutions that are costly to use, but able to enforce long-run relationships. We study the optimal decision problem of using self-governance for risk sharing or governance through enforcement provided by these institutions. Third-party enforcement is modelled as a costly technology that consumes resources, but permits the punishment of agents who deviate from ex ante specified allocations. We show that it is optimal to employ the technology whenever commitment problems prevent first-best risk sharing, but never optimal to provide incentives exclusively via this technology. Commitment problems then persist and the optimal incentive structure changes dynamically over time with third-party enforcement monotonically increasing in the relative inequality between agents.
- JEL Code
- C73 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Game Theory and Bargaining Theory→Stochastic and Dynamic Games, Evolutionary Games, Repeated Games
D60 : Microeconomics→Welfare Economics→General
D91 : Microeconomics→Intertemporal Choice→Intertemporal Household Choice, Life Cycle Models and Saving
K49 : Law and Economics→Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior→Other