Efficiency in Decentralised Markets with Aggregate Uncertainty

We study efficiency in non-stationary decentralised markets with common-value uncertainty and correlated asset values. There is an equal mass of buyers and sellers and payoffs from trade depend on an aggregate state, which only the sellers know. Buyers and sellers are randomly and anonymously matched in pairs over time, and buyers make the offers. We show that all equilibria become efficient as trading frictions vanish.

Uncertainty Shocks as Second-Moment News Shocks

We provide evidence on the relationship between aggregate uncertainty and the macroeconomy. Identifying uncertainty shocks using methods from the news shocks literature, the analysis finds that innovations in realized stock market volatility are robustly followed by contractions, while shocks to forward-looking uncertainty have no significant effect on the economy. Moreover, investors have historically paid large premia to hedge shocks to realized but not implied volatility. A model in which fundamental shocks are skewed left can match those facts. Aggregate volatility matters, but it is the realization of volatility, rather than uncertainty about the future, that has been associated with declines.