We propose a new framework for understanding non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cryptoassets that typically represent digital artwork. We posit that NFTs are digital Veblen goods: consumers demand them partly because other consumers do. Demand for NFT collections is thus fragile; issuers...

A pandemic or nationalism can dial back global integration as much as advancements in IT and transportation spur it. We study a parsimonious general equilibrium model of occupational choice, risk-taking, and income inequality against backdrop of market (dis)integration and certain...

Blockchain-based platforms and decentralized finance prominently features ``staking'': Besides offering a convenience yield for transactions as digital media of exchange, tokens are frequently staked for base-layer consensus generation or for incentivizing economic activities and network development, and consequently earn stakers...

Does the stock market exert short-term pressure on listed firms, do they respond, and is this response value reducing? We show that limited investor horizons indeed have those consequences, as follows. First, informative stock prices increase firm value; in our...

We show that, consistent with empirical evidence, access to order flow information allows traders to supply liquidity via contrarian marketable orders. Lack of market transparency can make liquidity demand upward sloping, inducing strategic complementarity and multiple equilibria. Then an initial...

We show that in a canonical model with heterogeneous entrepreneurs, financial frictions, and an imperfectly elastic supply of capital, a fall in the interest rate has an ambiguous effect on aggregate economic activity. In partial equilibrium, a lower interest rate raises...