IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v84y1994i1p104-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Barter and Monetary Exchange under Private Information

Author

Listed:
  • Williamson, Steve
  • Wright, Randall

Abstract

The authors develop a model of production and exchange with uncertainty concerning the quality of commodities and study the role of fiat money in ameliorating frictions caused by private information. The model is specified so that, without private information, only high-quality commodities are produced and there is no welfare gain from using money. With private information, there can be equilibria (and sometimes multiple equilibria) where low-quality commodities are produced and money can increase welfare. Money works by promoting useful production and exchange. In efficient monetary equilibria, agents adopt strategies that increase the probability of acquiring high-quality output. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Williamson, Steve & Wright, Randall, 1994. "Barter and Monetary Exchange under Private Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 104-123, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:84:y:1994:i:1:p:104-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28199403%2984%3A1%3C104%3ABAMEUP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Townsend, Robert M, 1989. "Currency and Credit in a Private Information Economy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1323-1344, December.
    2. Diamond, Peter A, 1984. "Money in Search Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 1-20, January.
    3. Harald Uhlig, 1996. "A law of large numbers for large economies (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 8(1), pages 41-50.
    4. Ostroy, Joseph M. & Starr, Ross M., 1990. "The transactions role of money," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 3-62, Elsevier.
    5. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Randall Wright, 1990. "Search for a Theory of Money," NBER Working Papers 3482, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Freeman, Scott, 1985. "Transactions Costs and the Optimal Quantity of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(1), pages 146-157, February.
    7. Diamond, Peter A, 1982. "Aggregate Demand Management in Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(5), pages 881-894, October.
    8. 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.
    9. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-954, August.
    10. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1989. "Gresham's Law in a Lemons Market for Assets," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 22(3), pages 686-697, August.
    11. Alchian, Armen A, 1977. "Why Money?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 9(1), pages 133-140, February.
    12. Bruce Smith, 1986. "Limited Information, Money, and Competitive Equilibrium," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 19(4), pages 780-797, November.
    13. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    14. Aiyagari, S Rao & Wallace, Neil, 1992. "Fiat Money in the Kiyotaki-Wright Model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(4), pages 447-464, October.
    15. Williamson, Stephen D., 1992. "Laissez-faire banking and circulating media of exchange," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 134-167, June.
    16. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I., 1986. "Money as the mechanism of exchange," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 93-115, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Williamson, Stephen & Wright, Randall, 2010. "New Monetarist Economics: Models," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 2, pages 25-96, Elsevier.
    2. Yener Gök, Zeynep, 2018. "Yeni Parasalcılık: Bir Yazın Taraması [New Monetarism: A Survey Of The Literature]," MPRA Paper 88349, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. François R. Velde & Warren E. Weber & Randall Wright, 1999. "A Model of Commodity Money, with Applications to Gresham's Law and the Debasement Puzzle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(1), pages 291-323, January.
    4. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Lagos, Ricardo & Wright, Randall, 2016. "Introduction to the symposium issue on money and liquidity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1-9.
    5. Bengtsson, Ingemar, 2005. "Transaction Costs, Money and Units of Account," Working Papers 2005:29, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    6. Stephen D. Williamson & Randall Wright, 2010. "New monetarist economics: methods," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 92(May), pages 265-302.
    7. Peter Rupert & Martin Schindler & Andrei Shevchenko & Randall Wright, 2000. "The search-theoretic approach to monetary economics: a primer," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Q IV, pages 10-28.
    8. Ed Nosal & Guillaume Rocheteau, 2006. "The economics of payments," Policy Discussion Papers, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Feb.
    9. Wright, Randall, 1995. "Search, evolution, and money," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 181-206.
    10. Li, Yiting, 1995. "Commodity money under private information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 573-592, December.
    11. Giuseppe Mastromatteo & Luigi Ventura, 2007. "The origin of money: A survey of the contemporary literature," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 54(2), pages 195-224, June.
    12. Grossman, Herschel I., 1991. "Monetary economics : A review essay," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 323-345, October.
    13. Guillaume Rocheteau & Randall Wright, 2005. "Money in Search Equilibrium, in Competitive Equilibrium, and in Competitive Search Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(1), pages 175-202, January.
    14. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Randall Wright, 1990. "Search for a Theory of Money," NBER Working Papers 3482, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Burdett, Kenneth & Trejos, Alberto & Wright, Randall, 2017. "A new suggestion for simplifying the theory of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 423-450.
    16. Eduardo Siandra, 1990. "Money and Specialization in Production," UCLA Economics Working Papers 610, UCLA Department of Economics.
    17. Guillaume Rocheteau & Pierre‐Olivier Weill, 2011. "Liquidity in Frictional Asset Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(s2), pages 261-282, October.
    18. Ricardo A. Lagos, "undated". ""An Alternative Approach to Market Frictions: An Application to the Market for Taxicab Rides''," CARESS Working Papres 96-09, University of Pennsylvania Center for Analytic Research and Economics in the Social Sciences.
    19. Gilányi, Zsolt, 2008. "Az uralkodó pénzelmélet alapproblémái - a készpénzfedezeti korlátok problémájáról [Underlying problems with the current theory of money - the problem of cash-cover limits]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 136-148.
    20. Starr, Ross M., 2002. "Existence of Uniqueness of "Money" in General Equilibrium: Natural Monopoly in the Most Liquid Asset," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt660465rm, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:84:y:1994:i:1:p:104-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.