Category Finance
Financial Assets > Liabilities
Take Bitcoin for example. It's a financial asset to whoever holds it. To whom is it a financial liability? I suppose you could say "it is a liability to the whole community of those who accept Bitcoin in exchange for goods". But that answer seems like a desperate attempt to salvage the assets=liabilities dogma. Nobody […]
Red/green money, Bank of Canada settlement balances, and TARGET2
This post is about something I don't understand. Let's start out simple. There are two parallel imaginary worlds: the green world and the red world. In the green world people use positively-valued green money as the medium of exchange. If I buy something I give the seller my green money in exchange. Green money flows […]
University budget surpluses: irreversible investment and uncertain demand
Unless it has a massive endowment fund, a university's biggest asset is its reputation. If it loses its reputation and students stop coming and paying, a university has only got a bunch of buildings that often aren't well-suited for any alternative use. That asset is not on the books. Unless it has a massive debt, […]
Some Simple Basic Money, for Finance People
Finance people are good people. Economics needs finance people. Some of my best friends are finance people. But (you heard that "but" coming), finance people (though there are of course honourable exceptions) just don't seem to get money. I can hear the reply now: "Yeah, and money people don't get finance either!". And I think […]
The Irrelevance of Universal Basic Income
The Modigliani Miller Theorem says that a firm's financing policy is irrelevant. It's wrong of course, but it's a good place to start thinking about firms' financing policies. It would be presumptuous to talk about an Irrelevance "Theorem" for Basic Income. The math is trivial, and the economics is obvious. (And I hope this is […]
Adding more periods to the Diamond Dybvig Model; fear of illiquidity not insolvency
David Andolfatto has a very good post on "Monetary Policy Implications of Blockchain Technology". In passing (it's not a central point of his post), David says: "However, it's worth pointing out that the leading economic theory of bank sector fragility, the Diamond and Dybvig model, does not rely on the existence of opacity in the financial […]
Helicopter Bonds as Qualitative Easing
Accounting can be fun. Helicopter Bonds is when the government prints some bonds and drops them out of a helicopter, so whoever picks up the bonds now owns them. It's identical to a bond-financed lump-sum transfer payment. It's identical to a bond-financed lump-sum tax cut (because only net taxes=taxes-transfers matter). The government borrows money from […]
Stag Hunt and The Money Problem
If I were any good at writing book reviews, this post would tell you all about Morgan Ricks' new book "The Money Problem", and would explain why I think it's a very good book. [Disclaimer: I was paid to fly down to Nashville for a couple of days to help Morgan with his first draft.] […]
Some thoughts on banning 100% reserve banking
In the olden days, economists would argue about whether fractional reserve banking should be banned, and 100% reserve banking should be mandatory. In today's mirror world, economists are arguing about whether fractional reserve banking should be mandatory, and 100% reserve banking banned. Or at least strongly discouraged. What JP Koning calls "cash escape inhibitors" (designed […]
Tiered negative interest rates and required reserves
Tiered negative interest rates are just a mirror-image of required reserves with positive interest rates. Think back to the olden days. Interest rates were always positive, except for currency that paid 0% interest, and banks had minimum required reserves. So for a 10% required reserve ratio, for every $100 of demand deposits banks the banks […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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