افق های بازرگانی و ارزش پول

This paper shows that fiat money can be feasible and essential even if the trading horizon is finite and deterministic. The result hinges on two features of our model. First, individual actions can affect the future availability of productive resources. So, agents may be willing to sell for money, even if on that date they have no reason to accept it. This makes monetary trade feasible in all preceding dates. Second, agents are anonymous and direct their search for partners. So, gift-giving arrangements may be prevented because agents can misrepresent their consumption needs. This makes money essential in exploiting any gains from specialization and trade.

A basic idea in economics is that allocations can be improved by specialization and trade and can be further expanded by innovations in the trading technology. Fiat money is such an innovation. Indeed, several observers have indicated that the use of “barren” tokens facilitates beneficial trades in markets that are subject to a variety of frictions (e.g., see Ostroy and Starr, 1990). Interestingly, virtually all fiat monetary models consider infinite trading sequences. The reason is that for intrinsically useless tokens to have value in equilibrium, agents must expect that someone will want to trade consumption for money at some future date (Cass and Shell, 1980). One may thus infer that money necessarily loses its beneficial role in environments where the trade sequence is finite and deterministic (e.g., see Kocherlakota, 1998, p. 244). In this study we explain why this would be a rushed conclusion, by using a model in which the actions of a single agent can reduce aggregate productive capacity.

Our analysis has demonstrated that fiat monetary exchange can expand the set of allocations even if trading horizons are finite and deterministic. The result hinges on two features of the model. First, individual actions can affect the future availability of productive resources. So, agents may be willing to sell for money, even if on that date they have no reason to accept it. This makes monetary trade feasible in all preceding dates. Second, agents are anonymous and direct their search for partners. So, gift-giving arrangements may be prevented because agents can misrepresent their consumption needs. This makes money essential in exploiting any gains from specialization and trade.