There is wide agreement that currency was not available in conveniently small denominations prior to the 19th century. Here, estimates of the costs of providing and maintaining money (coins) in 15th century Europe and parameterized versions of a matching model of money are used to find the optimal degree of divisibility. Although the optima are sensitive to the specification of the matching model, the optimal sizes we find agree in order of magnitude with the sizes of the most common coins in 15th century Europe. (Copyright: Elsevier)
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Article provided by Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics in its journal Review of Economic Dynamics.
Find related papers by JEL classification: E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
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Thomas J. Sargent & Neil Wallace, 1983.
"A model of commodity money,"
Staff Report
85, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
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