E4 - Money and Interest Rates

• The Economics of Cryptocurrencies—Bitcoin and Beyond

  Staff Working Paper 2019-40 Jonathan Chiu, Thorsten Koeppl

  Since the creation of Bitcoin in 2009, over 2,000 cryptocurrencies have been issued. We evaluate how well a cryptocurrency functions as a payment system.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Monetary policy, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E5, L, L5

• What Does Structural Analysis of the External Finance Premium Say About Financial Frictions?

  Staff Working Paper 2019-38 Jelena Zivanovic

  I use a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) with sign restrictions to provide conditional evidence on the behavior of the US external finance premium (EFP). The results indicate that the excess bond premium, a proxy for the EFP, reacts countercyclically to supply and monetary policy shocks and procyclically to demand shocks.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44