Essays on macroeconomics.
详细信息
文摘
This dissertation consists of two chapters on different topics in macroeconomics. The first chapter studies the economic effect of privately-issued banking notes (private money). I build a model in which money is divisible and price is endogenous. The model is based on Lagos and Wright's model (Lagos and Wright, 2005). The analysis shows that the private banknotes serve as short term credit for bankers. Given that the Friedman rule, which suggests a deflationary monetary policy, is not available, privately-issued banking notes improve resource allocation in the economy. The welfare improvement is not restricted to bankers. Nonbankers also enjoy welfare improvement. The paper offers new insight into the historical role of privately-issued banknotes.;The second chapter is based on a paper co-authored with Ying Fang, who was my fellow graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh and now is a professor at Xiamen University. In this chapter we use crossing-city data to estimate the effect of property rights protection on China's economic performance. We adopt the historical enrollments of Protestant lower primary schools in the early 20th century as the instrumental variable for current property rights protection in China. We find that property rights protection dominates others potential determinants of economic performance, such as geography or government policy.