IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/jeehcn/v12y2002i2n7.html

Does a Superior Monetary Standard Spontaneously Emerge?

Author

Listed:
  • White Lawrence H.

    (University of Missouri – St. Louis)

Abstract

Israel Kirzner cautions us that, because commodity price arbitrage as such does not operate outside commodity markets, the logic of Pareto-improving entrepreneurship does not provide a "copybook example" for explaining the evolution of social institutions in general. He characterizes Menger's theory of the emergence of money as non-entrepreneurial; by implication, while it assures us that some monetary standard will emerge, it does not assure us that a superior monetary standard will spontaneously emerge. I argue that entrepreneurial opportunities for private gain do in fact drive the Mengerian evolution from barter to money, and systematically promote the emergence of superior monetary standards, though not necessarily the best conceivable standards. In choosing among potential exchange media (of equally widespread popularity) to accept and offer, a pre-monetary trader has a private incentive to choose commodities that have whatever properties (portability, divisibility, and so on) other traders prefer in their exchange media.Israel Kirzner nous met en garde sur le fait que parce que l'arbitrage des prix des marchandises en soi n'opère pas hors des marchés des produits, la logique de l'amélioration (au sens parétien du terme) de l'esprit d'entreprise ne procure pas un "exemple classique" pour expliquer l'évolution des institutions sociales en général. Il caractérise la théorie mengerienne de l'émergence de la monnaie comme étant non entrepreneuriale; l'implication en est que si cette théorie nous assure qu'un certain étalon monétaire va émerger, elle ne peut affirmer avec certitude que cet étalon monétaire spontané sera supérieur.L'article suggère que des opportunités entrepreneuriales de gains privés orientent en effet l'évoluti- on décrite par Menger d'une situation de troc vers une économie monétaire et promeuvent systéma- tiquement l'émergence d'étalons monétaires supérieurs, bien que pas nécessairement les meilleurs étalons concevables. En choisissant parmi les intermédiaires d'échange potentiels (tout aussi populaires) lequel accepter ou offrir, un négociant d'avant l'ère monétaire a une insitation privée à choisir les marchandises dotées de propriétés (que ce soient celle d'être transportable, divisible ou autres) que les autres négociants préfèrent dans le cadre de leurs échanges.

Suggested Citation

  • White Lawrence H., 2002. "Does a Superior Monetary Standard Spontaneously Emerge?," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 1-15, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jeehcn:v:12:y:2002:i:2:n:7
    DOI: 10.2202/1145-6396.1062
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1145-6396.1062
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1145-6396.1062?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. S. J. Liebowitz & Stephen E. Margolis, 1994. "Network Externality: An Uncommon Tragedy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 133-150, Spring.
    2. Daniel Klein, 1997. "Convention, Social Order, and the Two Coordinations," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 319-335, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Nientiedt, 2023. "Menger’s account of the origin of money as a case study in the evolution of institutions," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 205-215, June.
    2. Horwitz, Steven, 2011. "Do we need a distinct monetary constitution?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 331-338.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brousseau, Eric & Raynaud, Emmanuel, 2011. "“Climbing the hierarchical ladders of rules”: A life-cycle theory of institutional evolution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 65-79.
    2. Wiebke Roß & Jens Weghake, 2018. "Wa(h)re Liebe: Was Online-Dating-Plattformen über zweiseitige Märkte lehren," TUC Working Papers in Economics 0017, Abteilung für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Technische Universität Clausthal (Department of Economics, Technical University Clausthal).
    3. Arun Rai & Xinlin Tang, 2014. "Research Commentary ---Information Technology-Enabled Business Models: A Conceptual Framework and a Coevolution Perspective for Future Research," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 25(1), pages 1-14, March.
    4. Jackson, Matthew O. & Watts, Alison, 2002. "On the formation of interaction networks in social coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 265-291, November.
    5. Honohan, Patrick & Vittas, Dimitri, 1996. "Bank regulation and the network paradigm : policy implications for developing and transition economies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1631, The World Bank.
    6. Jay Kesan & Andres Gallo, 2006. "Why are the United States and the European Union failing to regulate the internet efficiently? Going beyond the bottom-up and top-down alternatives," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 237-266, May.
    7. Amir, Rabah & Lazzati, Natalia, 2011. "Network effects, market structure and industry performance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2389-2419.
    8. Reynolds, Bruce J., 2000. "Cooperative Principles as Constraints for Public Goods Production," 2000 Annual Meeting, December 12-13 31808, NCERA-194 Research on Cooperatives.
    9. Slowak, André P., 2009. "Market fields structure & dynamics in industrial automation," FZID Discussion Papers 02-2009, University of Hohenheim, Center for Research on Innovation and Services (FZID).
    10. Zheng Chang & Mi Diao, 2022. "Inter-city transport infrastructure and intra-city housing markets: Estimating the redistribution effect of high-speed rail in Shenzhen, China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(4), pages 870-889, March.
    11. Fesselmeyer, Eric & Liu, Haoming, 2016. "How Do Users Value a Network Expansion? Evidence from the Public Transit System in Singapore," IZA Discussion Papers 10142, IZA Network @ LISER.
    12. Hunt, Shelby D., 1997. "Resource-advantage theory and the wealth of nations: Developing the socio-economic research tradition," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 335-357.
    13. Edward Castronova, "undated". "Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier," Gruter Institute Working Papers on Law, Economics, and Evolutionary Biology 2-1-1008, Berkeley Electronic Press.
    14. Bryan Caplan & Edward Stringham, 2003. "Networks, Law, and the Paradox of Cooperation," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 16(4), pages 309-326, December.
    15. Sartorius, Christian, 2006. "Second-order sustainability--conditions for the development of sustainable innovations in a dynamic environment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 268-286, June.
    16. Rachel Soloveichik, 2022. "Theoretical Inflation for Unavailable Products," BEA Working Papers 0193, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    17. Howell, Bronwyn, 2006. "Unveiling 'Invisible Hands': Two-Sided Platforms in Health Care Markets," Working Paper Series 18936, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    18. Stavins, Robert & Jaffe, Adam & Newell, Richard, 2000. "Technological Change and the Environment," Working Paper Series rwp00-002, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    19. Joao Leao & Vasco Santos, 2003. "New network goods," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp439, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    20. Howell, Bronwyn, 2006. "Unveiling 'Invisible Hands': Two-Sided Platforms in Health Care Markets," Working Paper Series 3841, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:jeehcn:v:12:y:2002:i:2:n:7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyterbrill.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.