IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

The Price Theory of Money, Prospero's Liquidity Trap, and Sudden Stop: Back to Basics and Back

Author Info

  • Guillermo A. Calvo

Abstract

Fiat money contains the seeds of its own destruction. It has no intrinsic value and, yet, it can be exchanged for valuable consumption and production goods. As Hahn (1965) shows, this situation puts fiat money's market value or liquidity premium at the brink of collapse. In this paper I will argue that (1) sticky prices, especially when staggered, provide output backing to fiat money, helping to sustain fiat money's liquidity premium and, thus, lowering the risk of a liquidity meltdown. I call this view the Price Theory of Money; (2) fixed-income assets linked to fiat money, especially if they are perceived to have low counter-party risk (like US Treasury bills, AAA bonds or Asset-Backed Securities) can take advantage of point (1) to become quasi-moneys; (3) this gives incentives to the private sector to create those assets; (4) however, unless protected by a Lender of Last Resort, the new assets' liquidity premium can quickly and massively evaporate in what I call (with a wink to the Bard) a Prospero's Liquidity Trap; (5) the latter lowers the market value of loan collateral and clogs the credit channel, bringing about a credit event or Sudden Stop, with severe output and employment consequences.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w18285.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 18285.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: Aug 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18285
Note: IFM
Contact details of provider: Postal:
National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.

Phone: 617-868-3900
Web page: http://www.nber.org
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
  • E41 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Demand for Money
  • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
  • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
  • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
  • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
  • F42 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Policy Coordination and Transmission

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as in new window
  1. Friedman, Milton, 1977. "Nobel Lecture: Inflation and Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 451-72, June.
  2. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly Princeton University Press.
  3. Guillermo A. Calvo & Alejandro Izquierdo & Luis Fernando Mejía, 2008. "Systemic Sudden Stops: The Relevance of Balance-Sheet Effects and Financial Integration," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 6747, Inter-American Development Bank.
  4. Reinhart, Karmen & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. ""This time is different": panorama of eight centuries of financial crises," Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 77-114, March.
  5. Calvo, Guillermo, 2012. "Financial crises and liquidity shocks a bank-run perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 317-326.
  6. John Kareken & Neil Wallace, 1981. "On the Indeterminacy of Equilibrium Exchange Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 96(2), pages 207-222.
  7. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1981. "Speculative hyperinflations in a maximizing models: can we rule them out?," International Finance Discussion Papers 195, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  8. Jordi Gali & Tommaso Monacelli, 2002. "Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Volatility in a Small Open Economy," NBER Working Papers 8905, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Gary Gorton & Andrew Metrick, 2009. "Securitized Banking and the Run on Repo," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2358, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2009.
  10. Ana Fostel & John Geanakoplos, 2011. "Tranching, CDS and Asset Prices: How Financial Innovation Can Cause Bubbles and Crashes," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000192, David K. Levine.
  11. Guillermo A. Calvo, 2006. "Monetary Policy Challenges in Emerging Markets: Sudden Stop, Liability Dollarization, and Lender of Last Resort," Research Department Publications 4504, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
  12. Calvo, Guillermo & Coricelli, Fabrizio & Ottonello, Pablo, 2012. "The Labor Market Consequences of Financial Crises With or Without Inflation: Jobless and Wageless Recoveries," CEPR Discussion Papers 9218, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  13. Guillermo A. Calvo & Carmen M. Reinhart, 2000. "Fixing for Your Life," NBER Working Papers 8006, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  14. Guillermo A. Calvo, 2005. "Emerging Capital Markets in Turmoil: Bad Luck or Bad Policy?," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262033348, December.
  15. Joshua Aizenman & Nancy Marion, 2009. "Using Inflation to Erode the U.S. Public Debt," NBER Working Papers 15562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  16. Borio Claudio, 2011. "Implementing a Macroprudential Framework: Blending Boldness and Realism," Capitalism and Society, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-25, August.
  17. Guillermo A. Calvo & Fabrizio Coricelli & Pablo Ottonello, 2012. "Labor Market, Financial Crises and Inflation: Jobless and Wageless Recoveries," NBER Working Papers 18480, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  18. Obstfeld,Maurice & Taylor,Alan M., 2004. "Global Capital Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521633178, November.
  19. Guillermo A. Calvo & Carmen M. Reinhart, 2002. "Fear of Floating," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(2), pages 379-408.
  20. Carmen M. Reinhart & Vincent R. Reinhart, 2010. "After the Fall," NBER Working Papers 16334, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  21. Guillermo A. Calvo & Alejandro Izquierdo & Ernesto Talvi, 2006. "Phoenix Miracles in Emerging Markets: Recovering without Credit from Systemic Financial Crises," Research Department Publications 4474, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
  22. Martin Uribe, 1995. "Hysteresis in a simple model of currency substitution," International Finance Discussion Papers 509, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  23. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-54, August.
  24. Gorton, Gary B., 2010. "Slapped by the Invisible Hand: The Panic of 2007," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199734153, December.
  25. Obstfeld, Maurice & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1986. "Ruling out divergent speculative bubbles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 349-362, May.
  26. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1980. "Equilibrium in a Pure Currency Economy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(2), pages 203-20, April.
  27. Jeremy C. Stein, 2012. "Monetary Policy as Financial Stability Regulation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 127(1), pages 57-95.
  28. Blejer, Mario I & Leiderman, Leonardo, 1980. "On the Real Effects of Inflation and Relative-Price Variability: Some Empirical Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(4), pages 539-44, November.
  29. Guillermo A. Calvo, 2007. "Interest Rate Rules, Inflation Stabilization, and Imperfect Credibility: The Small Open Economy Case," NBER Working Papers 13177, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  30. Starr, Ross M, 1974. "The Price of Money in a Pure Exchange Monetary Economy with Taxation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(1), pages 45-54, January.
  31. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2012. "The Aggregate Demand for Treasury Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 233 - 267.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:

  1. Guillermo Calvo, 2013. "Puzzling over the Anatomy of Crises: Liquidity and the Veil of Finance," IMES Discussion Paper Series 13-E-09, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18285. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ()

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.