We develop a dynamic asset pricing model of cryptocurrencies/tokens that allows users to conduct peer-to-peer transactions on digital platforms. The equilibrium value of tokens is determined by aggregating heterogeneous users' transactional demand rather than discounting cash flows, as is done in standard valuation models. Endogenous platform adoption builds on user network externality and exhibits an S-curve: it starts slow, becomes volatile, and eventually tapers off....

We develop a dynamic model of platform economy where tokens serve as a means of payments among platform users and are issued to finance investment in platform productivity. Tokens are optimally issued to reward platform owners when the productivity-normalized token supply is low and burnt to boost the franchise value when the productivity-normalized normalized supply is high. Although token price is determined in a liquid...

We model financial innovations such as Exchange-Traded Funds, smart beta products, and many index-based vehicles as composite securities (CSs) that facilitate trading the common factors in assets' liquidation values. Through accessing a larger basket of assets in endogenously chosen proportions, CSs reduce investors' duplication of effort in trading multiple securities and attract more factor investors. We characterize analytically how competitive CS designers in equilibrium optimally...

We build a tractable general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of cross-border data flows and pre-existing development gaps in data economies on each country's production and international trade. Raw data as byproducts of consumption can be transformed into various types of working data (information) to be used by both domestic and foreign producers. Because data constitute a new production factor for intermediate goods, a...

We revisit the relationship between firm competition and real efficiency in a novel setting with informational feedback from financial markets. While intensified competition can decrease market concentration in production, it reduces the value of proprietary information (on, e.g., market prospects) for speculators and discourages information production and price discovery in financial markets. Therefore, competition generates non-monotonic welfare effects through two competing channels: market concentration and...

We present the first piece of empirical evidence on blockchain adoption for environmental monitoring. Using a staggered difference-in-difference (DID) framework, we find that the concentrations of SO2, NO2, CO in blockchain adopting cities in China are on average lower by 17%, 8% and 4% compared to other cities. However, the blockchain monitoring system is also coming with a decrease in economic activities. The quarterly GDP...

Blockchain-based platforms and decentralized finance prominently features ``staking'': Besides offering a convenience yield for transactions as digital media of exchange, tokens are frequently staked for base-layer consensus generation or for incentivizing economic activities and network development, and consequently earn stakers rewards. To understand the economics of staking, token pricing, and network evolution, we build a continuous-time model of a token-based economy where agents heterogeneous in...

A pandemic or nationalism can dial back global integration as much as advancements in IT and transportation spur it. We study a parsimonious general equilibrium model of occupational choice, risk-taking, and income inequality against backdrop of market (dis)integration and certain services in inelastic supplies. In a decentralized, segmented environment, entrepreneurship and risk-taking are inefficiently low; in an integrated market, they can be socially excessive and...

With the rise of social media and streaming platforms, firms and brand-owners increasingly depend on influencers to attract consumers, who care about both common product quality and consumer-influencer interaction. Sellers thus compete in both influencer and product markets. As outreach and distribution technologies improve, influencer payoffs and income inequality change non-monotonically. More powerful influencers sell better-quality products, but pluralism in style mitigates market concentration by...

We model platform competition with endogenous data generation, collection, and sharing, thereby providing a unifying framework to evaluate data-related regulation and antitrust policies. Data are jointly produced from users' economic activities and platforms' investments in data infrastructure. Data improves service quality, causing a feedback loop that tends to concentrate market power. Dispersed users do not internalize the impact of their data contribution on (i) service...

We model the dynamic competition among national fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), whereby countries strategically digitize their currency and launch CBDC in response to competition from emerging cryptocurrencies and other currencies. Countries with strong but non-dominant currencies benefit the most from launching CBDC early on. The country with the strongest currency has relatively high incentives to digitize its currency so as...