时间/Time：

2024年 10月29日 周二 北京时间 下午14:00-15:30

地点/Venue：

线上：北大国发院承泽园校区132教室

线下：ZOOM会议（会议号: 897 2560 1400  密码: 938759）

主讲人/Speaker：游杨 Yang You

主持人/Host：   胡佳胤 Jiayin Hu            

摘要/Abstract:

Software and accounting advances have led to a rapid expansion in and proliferation of loyalty tokens, typically bundled as part of product price. Some tokens, such as in the airline industry, already account for tens of billions of dollars and are a major contributor to revenues. An open question is whether, as technology evolves, firms will have a strong incentive to make loyalty tokens tradable, raising regulation issues, including with monetary and banking authorities. This paper argues that for the vast majority of tokens, issuing firms have a strong incentive to make them non-tradable. Our analysis builds on Rogoff and You (2023)’s study of platform currencies to study the dual problem of redeemable tokens, which are vastly more common. The core incentive for token issuance here is that an issuer can earn a higher rate of return on the “float” (tokens issued but not yet used) than its retail customers can, much like a bank. Our main finding is that an issuer earns higher revenue by making tokens non-tradable even though the consumer would be willing to pay a higher price for tradable tokens. We further show that an issuer with stronger market power tends to allow more frequent token redemption, and its revenue is more token-dependent. We test the model’s predictions with data on airline mileage and hotel reward programs and document consistent empirical results that align with our theory.

主讲人介绍/Biography:

Dr. Yang You joined the University of Hong Kong as an assistant professor in finance in July 2021. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Economics from Harvard University. His research involves Cryptocurrency and Smart contracts, Decentralized finance, Development Economics, Culture and Economics, and Alternative data. His research has been published in Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, and NBER Macro Annual.Yang You serves as a member in the CBDC expert group for HKMA, and Subcommittee on Ecosystem and Infrastructure of Task Force on Promoting Web 3 Development, leads Blockchain and Smart Contract lab at the University of Hong Kong Shenzhen.