Ariel Zetlin-Jones
Associate Professor Carnegie Mellon University
- Pittsburgh PA
Ariel Zetlin-Jones' research focuses on macroeconomics, business cycles, financial frictions and banking.
Biography
Areas of Expertise
Media Appearances
In linked economy, even the idea of tariffs leaves a mark
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette online
2025-02-09
President Trump has delayed his proposed tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods. If implemented, it will have a big impact on Pennsylvania. Ariel Zetlin-Jones (Tepper School of Business) says that PA exports $14B of chemicals, including pharmaceuticals and Mexico and Canada are two of the largest buyers. Zetlin-Jones also warns as the Volatility Index rises, "it creates a pause for businesses, and so that's going to have a drag on our economy."
Has bitcoin's limited supply driven its rally? Experts weigh in
ABC News online
2024-12-10
Bitcoin had a price surge past $100,000 last week and experts, including Ariel Zetlin-Jones weighed in on Bitcoin's limited supply and fluctuating demand: "As with other goods, it's difficult to determine the precise role played by supply or demand in setting the price of Bitcoin."
Leaked documents that Sam Bankman-Fried used to fundraise in 2021 and 2022 show why VCs may have ignored due diligence and scrambled to invest nearly $2 billion
Fortune online
2022-11-15
“The exchange lent billions, including most of its FTT pile, to its sister firm Alameda for trading capital at first, and eventually to cover massive losses,” said Cory Klippsten, founder and CEO of Swan Bitcoin, a financial services company. “It seems like FTX lent customer deposits to Alameda Research using FTT tokens as collateral. So when public perception of the value of the tokens collapsed, the value of the loan and collateral also collapsed,” added Ariel Zetlin-Jones, economist at Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.
FTX made a cryptocurrency that brought in millions. Then it brought down the company
NPR online
2022-11-15
The FTX Token was part of an elaborate, rewards-based marketing scheme to attract buyers.
"I think of it like airline miles," says Ariel Zetlin-Jones, who teaches economics at Carnegie Mellon University. "Like loyalty points for using the exchange."
Cryptocurrency mining under proposed US policy changes
Coin Telegraph online
2021-08-09
The regulatory scrutiny of blockchains and cryptocurrencies is increasing. From the cryptocurrency mining ban in China to President Joe Biden’s Working Group on Financial Markets, convened by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the economic activities that support and are enabled by blockchains have become a significant concern for policymakers. Most recently, a provision in the proposed 2021 infrastructure bill amends the definition of a broker to expressly include “any person who [...] is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person.”
The financialization of cryptocurrencies
IBM Supply Chain and Blockchain Blog online
2021-05-20
What does it mean to “own a Bitcoin?” It means there is a recorded transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain where someone sent one bitcoin to your public key address and that you (and you alone) know the address’s private key. Even if that terse description explains things, it does not help with the logistic details of how you go about doing this. It is complicated. But it is also complicated to physically buy and hold a bar of gold or a barrel of oil. Google it. You could make it happen, but it is work.
What is a corporate blockchain?
IBM Supply Chain and Blockchain Blog online
2019-01-28
We have this image in our head of an overworked Chief Technology Officer summoned to the boss’s office and told to produce a corporate blockchain but without all that dodgy cryptocurrency. We imagine this CTO is puzzled. We certainly are. What is a corporate blockchain?
Media
Industry Expertise
Accomplishments
Richard M. Cyert Award for Excellence in Teaching, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
2015
BP Junior Faculty Chair, Tepper School of Business
2016
Education
University of Minnesota:
Ph.D.
Economics
2012
University of Minnesota
M.A.
Economics
2011
Williams College
B.A.
Political Economy and Mathematics
2004
Links
Articles
Screening and adverse selection in frictional markets
Journal of Political Economy2019
We incorporate a search-theoretic model of imperfect competition into a standard model of asymmetric information with unrestricted contracts. We characterize the unique equilibrium and use our characterization to explore the interaction between adverse selection, screening, and imperfect competition. We show that the relationship between an agent’s type, the quantity he trades, and the price he pays is jointly determined by the severity of adverse selection and the concentration of market power. Therefore, quantifying the effects of adverse selection requires controlling for market structure. We also show that increasing competition and reducing informational asymmetries can decrease welfare.
The ethics of contentious hard forks in blockchain networks with fixed features
Frontiers in Blockchain2019
An advantage of blockchain protocols is that a decentralized community of users may each update and maintain a public ledger without the need for a trusted third party. Such modifications introduce important economic and ethical considerations that we believe have not been considered among the community of blockchain developers. We clarify the problem and provide one implementable ethical framework that such developers could use to determine which aspects should be immutable and which should not.
Currency stability using blockchain technology
Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control2022
To date, cryptocurrency prices are volatile and many cryptocurrency developers have adopted ad hoc approaches to stabilize their cryptocurrency price. When these currencies are not 100% backed by other valued assets, part of their price volatility may arise from self-fulfilling expectations of a speculative attack (as in Obstfeld (1996)). We show that an exchange rate policy, which is less than 100% backed and dynamically adjusts in response to traders’ conversion demand eliminates speculative attacks while, under some conditions, preserving much of the desired exchange rate stability. This dynamic exchange rate policy admits a great deal of discretion to and requires commitment by the party implementing the policy.
Moral Hazard in Remote Teams
International Economic Review2022
We reexamine the ability of teams to credibly self‐impose group punishments and prevent free riding when individual inputs are unobservable. We formulate self‐imposed group punishments as performance underreporting by the team. Although underreporting is not credible in a static game, we show that simple strategies can sustain underreporting in a repeated game, and that the threat of underreporting improves welfare only if team members' preferences between shirking and team output consumption are nonseparable. Our results suggest that self‐assessments can replace increased managerial monitoring in remote work environments.
Market-making with search and information frictions
Journal of Economic Theory2023
We develop a dynamic model of trading through market-makers that incorporates two canonical sources of illiquidity: trading (or search) frictions, which imply that investors can rebalance their portfolio only with a delay; and information frictions, which imply that market-makers face some degree of adverse selection. We use this model to study the effects of various technological innovations and regulatory initiatives that have reduced trading frictions in over-the-counter markets. Our main result is that reducing trading frictions can lead to less liquidity, as measured by bid-ask spreads.
