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Coin sizes and payments in commodity money systems

Author

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  • Angela Redish
  • Warren E. Weber

Abstract

Commodity money standards in medieval and early modern Europe were characterized by recurring complaints of small change shortages and by numerous debasements of the coinage. To confront these facts, we build a random matching monetary model with two indivisible coins with different intrinsic values. The model shows that small change shortages can exist in the sense that changes in the size of the small coin affect ex ante welfare. Further, the optimal ratio of coin sizes is shown to depend upon the trading opportunities in a country and a country's wealth. Thus, coinage debasements can be interpreted as optimal responses to changes in fundamentals. Further, the model shows that replacing full-bodied small coins with tokens is not necessarily welfare-improving.

Suggested Citation

  • Angela Redish & Warren E. Weber, 2008. "Coin sizes and payments in commodity money systems," Working Papers 658, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmwp:658
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Francois R. Velde & Warren E. Weber, 2000. "A Model of Bimetallism," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1210-1234, December.
    2. François R. Velde & Warren E. Weber & Randall Wright, 1999. "A Model of Commodity Money, with Applications to Gresham's Law and the Debasement Puzzle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(1), pages 291-323, January.
    3. Vincent Bignon & Richard Dutu, 2006. "Moneychangers and Commodity Money," Working Papers hal-04138836, HAL.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jin, Gu & Zhu, Tao, 2019. "Debasements and Small Coins: An Untold Story of Commodity Money," MPRA Paper 93057, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Williamson, Stephen & Wright, Randall, 2010. "New Monetarist Economics: Models," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 2, pages 25-96, Elsevier.
    3. Angela Redish & Warren E. Weber, 2011. "A model of commodity money with minting and melting," Staff Report 460, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    4. Bignon, Vincent & Dutu, Richard, 2017. "Coin Assaying And Commodity Money," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(6), pages 1305-1335, September.
    5. Farley Grubb, 2012. "Chronic Specie Scarcity and Efficient Barter: The Problem of Maintaining an Outside Money Supply in British Colonial America ," Working Papers 12-08, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    6. Fischer, Andreas M., 2014. "Immigration And Large Banknotes," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 899-919, June.
    7. Allan Hernandez-Chanto, 2020. "The extrinsic value of low-denomination money holdings," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 8(2), pages 263-280, October.
    8. Young Sik Kim & Manjong Lee, 2012. "Return on Commodity Money, Small Change Problems, and Fiat Money," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(2‐3), pages 533-549, March.
    9. Farley Grubb, 2015. "Common Currency versus Currency Union: The U.S. Continental Dollar and Denominational Structure, 1775-1776," NBER Working Papers 21728, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Farley Grubb, 2015. "Common Currency versus Currency Union: The U.S. Continental Dollar and Denominational Structure, 1775-1779," Working Papers 15-10, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.

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    Keywords

    Coinage;

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