WORKING PAPERS
ABSTRACT: We use microeconomic theory to describe the inner workings of Constant Function Market Makers (CFMMs). We show that standard results from consumer theory apply in this new context, endowing us with powerful tools to characterize the optimal design of CFMMs. We employ them to analyze the externalities that traders and liquidity providers exert on each other when interacting through a CFMM. Liquidity providers reduce the execution costs by flattening the bonding curve on which trades are executed. Arbitrageurs impose an adverse selection cost on liquidity providers by unfavorably rebalancing their portfolio. We show that the strengths of these two externalities are pinned down by the curvature of the bonding curve and are inversely related to each other, thereby identifying the fundamental economic tradeo that market designers have to address.
R&R Management Science
ABSTRACT: We propose a framework for the fundamental valuation of utility tokens. Our model endogenizes the velocity of circulation of tokens and yields a pricing formula that is fully microfounded. According to our model, tokens are valuable because they have to be immediately accessible when the services are needed, a requirement that is reminiscent of the cash-in-advance constraint. The equilibrium price paths of successful projects go through two successive phases: A speculative phase where marginal holders are investors that do not intend to use the services and, later on, a user phase where all tokens are held by clients. Calibrating the model, we find that it helps rationalizing the extreme volatility and significant valuation of tokens early on during the adoption stage.
ABSTRACT: According to French law, employers have to pay at least six months salary to employees whose seniority exceeds two years in case of unfair dismissal. We show, relying on data, that this regulation entails a hike in severance payments at two-year seniority which induces a significant rise in the job separation rate before the two-year threshold and a drop just after. The layoff costs and its procedural component are evaluated thanks to the estimation of a search and matching model which reproduces the shape of the job separation rate. We find that total layoff costs increase with seniority and are about four times higher than the expected severance payments at two years of seniority. Counterfactual exercises show that the fragility of low-seniority jobs implies that layoff costs reduce the average job duration and increase unemployment for a wide set of empirically relevant parameters.
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