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Efficient online exchange via fiat money

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  • Mihaela Schaar
  • Jie Xu
  • William Zame

Abstract

In many online systems, individuals provide services for each other; the recipient of the service obtains a benefit but the provider of the service incurs a cost. If benefit exceeds cost, provision of the service increases social welfare and should therefore be encouraged—but the individuals providing the service gain no (immediate) benefit from providing the service and hence have an incentive to withhold service. Hence, there is scope for designing a protocol that improves welfare by encouraging exchange. To operate successfully within the confines of the online environment, such a protocol should be distributed, robust, and consistent with individual incentives. This paper proposes and analyzes protocols that rely solely on the exchange of fiat money or tokens. The analysis has much in common with work on search models of money but the requirements of the environment also lead to many differences from previous analyses—and some surprises; in particular, existence of equilibrium becomes a thorny problem and the optimal quantity of money is different. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Mihaela Schaar & Jie Xu & William Zame, 2013. "Efficient online exchange via fiat money," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(2), pages 211-248, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:54:y:2013:i:2:p:211-248
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-013-0744-4
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    Cited by:

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    5. Takashi Kamihigashi, 2014. "An order-theoretic approach to dynamic programming: an exposition," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(1), pages 13-21, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Online exchange; Token exchange; D51; E40;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D51 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Exchange and Production Economies
    • E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General

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