[2月28日] 国际经济学Workshop

发布日期:2023-02-27 09:12    来源:

 Liquidity, Debt Denomination, and Currency Dominance

主讲人:Chenzi XU(Stanford University Graduate School of Business)

主持人:余昌华(北京大学国家发展研究院)

时间:2023年2月28日(周二)上午9:30-11:00(北京时间)

地点:承泽园246教室

Zoom会议号:926 3889 7210

密码:908060

摘要:

We provide a liquidity-based theory for the dominant use of the US dollar as the unit of denomination in global debt contracts. Firms need to trade their revenue streams for the assets required to extinguish their debt obligations. When asset markets are illiquid, as modeled via endogenous search frictions, firms optimally choose to denominate their debt in the unit of the asset that is easiest to obtain. This gives central importance to the denomination of government-backed assets with the largest safe, liquid, short-term float and to financial market institutions that facilitate safe asset creation. Equilibria with a single dominant currency emerge from a positive feedback cycle whereby issuing in the more liquid denomination endogenously raises its liquidity, incentivizing more issuance. We rationalize features of the current dollar-dominant international financial architecture and relate our theory to historical experiences, such as the prominence of the Dutch florin and pound sterling, the transition to the dollar, and the ongoing debate about the potential rise of the Chinese renminbi.

主讲人介绍:

Chenzi Xu is an assistant professor of finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and serves as an associate editor at Journal of Political Economy. Her research is at the intersection of finance, international economics, and economic history. She focuses on the relationship between banks and international capital and goods flows, with a particular interest in understanding how historical events impact and shape modern outcomes. Chenzi received her PhD in economics from Harvard. Prior to joining Stanford, she spent a year at Dartmouth College as the International Economics Postdoctoral Fellow. She holds a BA from Harvard in economics and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge in economic history, where she was the William Shirley Scholar at Pembroke College.