This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

A model of commodity money, with applications to Gresham's law and the debasement puzzle

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Francois R. Velde
Warren E. Weber
Randall Wright

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

We develop a model of commodity money and use it to analyze the following two questions motivated by issues in monetary history: What are the conditions under which Gresham's Law holds? And, what are the mechanics of a debasement (lowering the metallic content of coins)? The model contains light and heavy coins, imperfect information, and prices determined via bilateral bargaining. There are equilibria with neither, both, or only one type of coin in circulation. When both circulate, coins may trade by weight or by tale. We discuss the extent to which Gresham's Law holds in the various cases. Following a debasement, the quantity of reminting depends on the incentives offered by the sovereign. Equilibria exist with positive seigniorage and a mixture of old and new coins in circulation.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr215.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in its series Staff Report with number 215.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML, plain text, BibTeX, RIS (EndNote), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: 1997
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmsr:215

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 90 Hennepin Avenue, P.O. Box 291, Minneapolis, MN 55480-0291
Phone: (612) 204-5000
Web page: http://minneapolisfed.org/
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Email:
Web: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Diane Rosenberger).

Related research
Keywords: Coinage Gresham's law

Other versions of this item:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Li, Yiting, 1995. "Commodity money under private information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 573-592, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Edward J. Green & Warren Weber, 1996. "Will the New $100 Bill Decrease Counterfeiting?," Macroeconomics 9609003, EconWPA, revised 11 Sep 1996. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Arthur J. Rolnick & François R. Velde & Warren E. Weber, 1995. "The debasement puzzle: an essay on medieval monetary policy," Working Papers 536, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  4. Thomas J. Sargent & Neil Wallace, 1983. "A model of commodity money," Staff Report 85, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Edward J. Green & Warren E. Weber, 1996. "Will the new $100 bill decrease counterfeiting?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Sum, pages 3-10. [Downloadable!]
  6. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Maskin, Eric S, 1996. "A Walrasian Theory of Money and Barter," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(4), pages 955-1005, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Edward J. Green & Ruilin Zhou, . ""A Rudimentary Model of Search with Divisible Money and Prices''," CARESS Working Papres 95-17, University of Pennsylvania Center for Analytic Research and Economics in the Social Sciences. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Williamson, Stephen D., 1992. "Laissez-faire banking and circulating media of exchange," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 134-167, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Arthur J. Rolnick & Warren E. Weber, 1986. "Gresham's law or Gresham's fallacy?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Win, pages 17-24. [Downloadable!]
  10. Shi Shougong, 1995. "Money and Prices: A Model of Search and Bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 467-496, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Trejos, Alberto & Wright, Randall, 1995. "Search, Bargaining, Money, and Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(1), pages 118-41, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Eric S. Maskin, 1996. "A Walrasian Theory of Money," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1753, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  13. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1993. "A Search-Theoretic Approach to Monetary Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 63-77, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Akerlof, George A, 1970. "The Market for 'Lemons': Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  16. Alberto Trejos, 1997. "Incentives to produce quality and the liquidity of money (*)," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 355-365.
  17. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-54, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Williamson, Steve & Wright, Randall, 1994. "Barter and Monetary Exchange under Private Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 104-23, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  19. Rolnick, Arthur J & Weber, Warren E, 1986. "Gresham's Law or Gresham's Fallacy?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(1), pages 185-99, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Miguel Molico, 2006. "The Distribution Of Money And Prices In Search Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(3), pages 701-722, 08. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Bruce D. Smith & Thomas J. Sargent, 1997. "Coinage, debasements, and Gresham's laws," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 197-226. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  22. Cuadras-Morato, Xavier, 1994. "Commodity Money in the Presence of Goods of Heterogeneous Quality," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 579-91, May.
    Other versions:
  23. Sik Kim, Young, 1996. "Money, barter, and costly information acquisition," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 119-142, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. Greenfield, Robin L & Rockoff, Hugh, 1995. "Gresham's Law in Nineteenth-Century America," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 1086-98, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1989. "Gresham's Law in a Lemons Market for Assets," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 22(3), pages 686-97, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Y. Jin & T. Temzelides, 1999. "On the Local Interaction of Money and Credit," Macroeconomics 9905001, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Ed Nosal & Neil Wallace, 2004. "A model of (the threat of) counterfeiting," Working Paper 0401, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. [Downloadable!]
  3. Ben R. Craig & Christopher J. Waller, 2000. "Dual-currency economies as multiple-payment systems," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Q I, pages 2-13. [Downloadable!]
  4. Sebastien Lotz & Guillaume Rocheteau, 2000. "Launching of a New Currency in a Simple Random Matching Model," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0720, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Guillaume Rocheteau, 2008. "Money and competing assets under private information," Working Paper 0802, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. [Downloadable!]
  6. Stephen Millard, 2007. "The foundations of money, payments and central banking: A review essay," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 106, Money Macro and Finance Research Group. [Downloadable!]
  7. Angela Redish & Warren E. Weber, 2008. "Coin sizes and payments in commodity money systems," Working Papers 658, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
  8. Richard Dutu & Ed Nosal & Guillaume Rocheteau, 2005. "On the recognizability of money," Working Paper 0512, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. [Downloadable!]
  9. Ed Nosal & Guillaume Rocheteau, 2006. "The economics of payments," Policy Discussion Papers, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Feb. [Downloadable!]
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? You can import bibliographic info in various formats into you bibliographic tool, or just into your word processor. See under "publisher info" on each abstract page.

This page was last updated on 2008-8-29.


This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.