Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:19:37.816Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

THE EMERGENCE OF MONEY: A DYNAMIC ANALYSIS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2017

Maurizio Iacopetta*
Affiliation:
SKEMA Business School, Université Côte d'Azur (GREDEG) and OFCE, Sciences-Po Paris
*
Address correspondence to: Maurizio Iacopetta, SKEMA Business School, 60 Rue Fedor Dostoievski, 06902 Valbonne, France; e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

This paper studies the role of liquidity in triggering the emergence of money in a Kiyotaki-Wright economy. A novel method computes the dynamic Nash equilibria of the economy by setting up an iteration of the agents' profile of (pure) strategies and of the distribution of commodities across agents. The analysis shows that the evolving state of liquidity can spark the acceptance of a high-cost-storage commodity as money or cause the disappearance of a commodity money. It also reveals the existence of multiple dynamic equilibria with pure strategies. Several simulations clarify how history and the coordination of beliefs matter for the selection of a particular equilibrium.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am grateful to Federico Bonetto for his help at several stages of the paper. Two anonymous Referees, and an anonymous Associate Editor of this journal gave me valuable suggestions on how to clarify the analysis and to simplify the exposition. I wish also to thank Zakaria Babutsidze, Nobuyuki Hanaki, and seminar and conference participants at the 2016 Meetings of the Society for Computational Economics Conference (Bordeaux), Luiss University (Rome), and University of Göttingen for comments. All remaining errors are mine.

References

REFERENCES

Araujo, L. and Camargo, B. (2006) Information, learning, and the stability of fiat money. Journal of Monetary Economics 53, 15711591.10.1016/j.jmoneco.2005.07.017Google Scholar
Araujo, L. and Minetti, R. (2011) On the essentiality of banks. International Economic Review 52, 679691.10.1111/j.1468-2354.2011.00645.xGoogle Scholar
Başçi, E. (1999) Learning by imitation. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 23, 15691585.10.1016/S0165-1889(98)00084-0Google Scholar
Brown, P. M. (1996) Experimental evidence on money as a medium of exchange. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 20, 583600.10.1016/0165-1889(95)00865-9Google Scholar
Duffy, J. (2001) Learning to speculate: Experiments with artificial and real agents. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 25, 295319.10.1016/S0165-1889(00)00028-2Google Scholar
Duffy, J. and Ochs, Jack (1999) Emergence of money as a medium of exchange: An experimental study. American Economic Review 89, 847877.10.1257/aer.89.4.847Google Scholar
Duffy, J. and Ochs, Jack (2002) Intrinsically worthless objects as media of exchange: Experimental evidence. International Economic Review 43, 637674.10.1111/1468-2354.t01-1-00030Google Scholar
Ennis, H. (2001) On random matching, monetary equilibria, and sunspots. Macroeconomic Dynamics 5, 132142.10.1017/S1365100501018065Google Scholar
Fudenberg, D. and Levine, D. (1988) Open-loop and closed-loop equilibria in dynamic games with many players. Journal of Economic Theory 44, 118.10.1016/0022-0531(88)90093-2Google Scholar
Fukao, K. and Benabou, R. (1993) History versus expectations: A comment. Quarterly Journal of Economics 108, 535542.10.2307/2118344Google Scholar
Kehoe, M. J., Kiyotaki, N., and Wright, R. (1993) More on money as a medium of exchange. Economic Theory 3, 297314.10.1007/BF01212919Google Scholar
Kiyotaki, N. and Wright, R. (1989) On money as a medium of exchange. Journal of Political Economy 97, 927954.10.1086/261634Google Scholar
Krugman, P. (1991) History versus expectations. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106, 651667.10.2307/2937950Google Scholar
Lagos, R., Rocheteau, G., and Wright, R. (2017) Liquidity: A new monetarist perspective. Journal of Economic Literature 55, 371440.10.1257/jel.20141195Google Scholar
Luo, G. (1999) The evolution of money as a medium of exchange. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 23, 415458.10.1016/S0165-1889(98)00029-3Google Scholar
Marimon, R., McGrattan, E., and Sargent, T. (1990) Money as a medium of exchange in an economy with artificially intelligent agents. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 14, 329373.10.1016/0165-1889(90)90025-CGoogle Scholar
Matsuyama, K. (1991) Increasing returns, industrialization, and indeterminacy of equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106, 617650.10.2307/2937949Google Scholar
Matsuyama, K., Kiyotaki, N., and Matsui, A. (1993) Toward a theory of international currency. Review of Economic Studies 60, 283307.10.2307/2298058Google Scholar
Menger, K. (1892) On the origin of money. Economic Journal 2, 239255.10.2307/2956146Google Scholar
Oberfield, E. and Trachter, T. (2012) Commodity money with frequent search. Journal of Economic Theory 147, 23322356.10.1016/j.jet.2012.09.013Google Scholar
Quiggin, A. H. (1949) A Survey of Primitive Money: The Beginning of Currency. New York: Barnes and Noble.Google Scholar
Renero, J. M. (1998) Unstable and stable steady-states in the Kiyotaki-Wright model. Economic Theory 11, 275294.10.1007/s001990050188Google Scholar
Sethi, R. (1999) Evolutionary stability and media of exchange. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 40, 233254.10.1016/S0167-2681(99)00066-9Google Scholar
Trejos, A. and Wright, R. (2016) Search-based models of money and finance: An integrated approach. Journal of Economic Theory 164, 1031.10.1016/j.jet.2014.11.005Google Scholar
Wright, R. (1995) Search, evolution, and money. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 19, 181206.10.1016/0165-1889(93)00770-5Google Scholar