We show that utility tokens can limit the rent-seeking activities of two-sided platforms with market power while preserving efficiency gains due to network effects. We model platforms where buyers and sellers can meet to exchange services. Tokens serve as the sole medium of exchange on a platform and can be traded in a secondary market. Tokenizing a platform commits a firm to give up monopolist…
Liquidity transformation, a key role of banks, is thought to increase fragility, as uninsured depositors face an incentive to withdraw money before others (a so-called panic run). Despite much theoretical work, however, there is little empirical evidence establishing this mechanism. In this paper, we provide the first large-scale evidence of this mechanism. Banks that engage in more liquidity t…
We provide a model to understand the effects of commodity futures financialization on various market variables. We distinguish between financial speculators and financial hedgers and study their separate and combined effects on the informativeness of futures prices, the futures price bias, the comovement of futures prices with other markets, and the predictiveness of financial trading. We captu…