This paper investigates the possibility that wealth (holdings of money) serves as a signal of ability to produce high quality products for agents who cannot directly observe the quality of the products. A producer’s wealth may advertise past success in selling products to agents who knew the producer’s ability and thus signal its ability. This analysis shows that such signaling effects may arise in equilibrium and may lead to more unequal distributions of wealth and lower welfare than would otherwise arise.
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Paper provided by Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science in its series Discussion Papers with number
1401.
Length: Date of creation: Jun 2005 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1401
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Find related papers by JEL classification: E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
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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.:
Camera, Gabriele & Corbae, Dean, 1999.
"Money and Price Dispersion,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(4), pages 985-1008, November.
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