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Currency competition : a partial vindication of Hayek

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Author Info
Antoine Martin
Stacey L. Schreft

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Abstract

This paper establishes the existence of equilibria for environments in which outside money is issued competitively. Such equilibria are typically believed not to exist because of a classic overissue problem: if money is valued in equilibrium, an issuer produces money until its value is driven to zero. By backward induction, money cannot have value in the first place. However, for any given finite amount of money outstanding, a monetary economy typically has two equilibria. In one, money has value; in the other, money is not valued because no one expects it to be valued. This paper takes this latter equilibrium seriously and shows that trigger strategies eliminate the overissue problem if agents have beliefs of the following type: if an issuer produces money beyond some threshold amount, then the issuer’s money has no value. This result is very general, applying to any monetary economy in which equilibria with and without valued money exist if the money supply is finite. The paper also compares the allocation achieved by a monopolist to that achieved with competitive issuance in both a search and an overlapping-generations environment. The results depend on the environment considered, but two general conclusions arise. First, it is ambiguous whether competitive issuers can achieve a more desirable allocation than a monopolist. Second, with competitive issuance, a licensing agency can always improve on pure laissez-faire and achieve the efficient allocation in the long run.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in its series Research Working Paper with number RWP 03-04.

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Date of creation: 2003
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedkrw:rwp03-04

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Keywords: Equilibrium (Economics) ; Money;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Ricardo de O. Cavalcanti & Andres Erosa & Ted Temzelides, 1999. "Private Money and Reserve Management in a Random-Matching Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(5), pages 929-945, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Burdett, Kenneth & Trejos, Alberto & Wright, Randall, 2001. "Cigarette Money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 99(1-2), pages 117-142, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Camera, Gabriele & Craig, Ben & Waller, Christopher J., 2004. "Currency competition in a fundamental model of money," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 521-544, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Aleksander Berentsen, . "Time-Consistent Private Supplie of Outside Paper Money," IEW - Working Papers iewwp156, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - IEW. [Downloadable!]
  5. Aiyagari, S. Rao & Wallace, Neil, 1997. "Government Transaction Policy, the Medium of Exchange, and Welfare," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 1-18, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Edward J. Green, 1999. "Money and debt in the structure of payments," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Spr, pages 13-29. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Shi Shougong, 1995. "Money and Prices: A Model of Search and Bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 467-496, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Cyril Monnet, 2002. "Optimal public money," Working Paper Series 159, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  9. Trejos, Alberto & Wright, Randall, 1995. "Search, Bargaining, Money, and Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(1), pages 118-41, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Kareken, John & Wallace, Neil, 1981. "On the Indeterminacy of Equilibrium Exchange Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 96(2), pages 207-22, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Stephen D. Williamson, 1999. "Private money," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 469-499.
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  12. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1993. "A Search-Theoretic Approach to Monetary Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 63-77, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. S. Rao Aiyagari & Neil Wallace & Randall Wright, 1996. "Coexistence of money and interest-bearing securities," Working Papers 550, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  14. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1991. "A contribution to the pure theory of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 215-235, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Li, Victor E, 1995. "The Optimal Taxation of Fiat Money in Search Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 36(4), pages 927-42, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Klein, Benjamin, 1974. "The Competitive Supply of Money," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 6(4), pages 423-53, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Li, Yiting & Wright, Randall, 1998. "Government Transaction Policy, Media of Exchange, and Prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 290-313, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Cavalcanti, Ricardo de O & Wallace, Neil, 1999. "Inside and Outside Money as Alternative Media of Exchange," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 443-57, August.
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  19. Ritter, Joseph A, 1995. "The Transition from Barter to Fiat Money," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 134-49, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Ricardo de O. Cavalcanti & Neil Wallace, 1999. "A model of private bank-note issue," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(1), pages 104-136, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Okuno, Masahiro & Zilcha, Itzhak, 1980. "On the Efficiency of a Competitive Equilibrium in Infinite Horizon Monetary Economies," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(4), pages 797-807, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Luis Araujo & Braz Camargo, 2005. "Monetary Equilibrium with Decentralized Trade and Learning," UWO Department of Economics Working Papers 20051, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Cornelia Holthausen & Cyril Monnet, 2003. "Money and payments: a modern perspective," Working Paper Series 245, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
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