The History and Economics of Safe Assets
安全资产是几乎总能按面值交易、无需昂贵分析的资产，其设计消除了信息生产动机和逆向选择风险。本文从历史和经济角度探讨安全资产的作用，特别是银行债务作为短期安全资产易受挤兑，对宏观经济学和货币政策有重要影响。
Safe assets play a critical role in an(y) economy. A safe asset is an asset that is (almost always) valued at face value without expensive and prolonged analysis. By design, there is no benefit to producing (private) information about its value, and this is common knowledge. Consequently, agents need not fear adverse selection when buying or selling safe assets. Safe assets can be easily used to exchange for goods or services or for another asset. These short-term safe assets can be money or money-like. A long-term safe asset can store value over time or be used as collateral. Much of human history can be written in terms of the search for and production of safe assets. But the most prevalent, privately produced short-term safe assets, bank debts, are subject to runs, and this has important implications for macroeconomics and for monetary policy.