IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nys/sunysb/14-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Minimally complex exchange mechanisms: Emergence of prices, markets, and money

Author

Listed:
  • Pradeep Dubey
  • Siddhartha Sahi
  • Martin Shubik

Abstract

We consider abstract exchange mechanisms wherein individuals submit ``diversified" offers in m commodities, which are then redistributed to them. Our first result is that if the mechanism satisfies certain natural conditions embodying ``fairness" and ``convenience" then it admits unique prices, in the sense of consistent exchange-rates across commodity pairs ij that equalize the valuation of offers and returns for each individual. We next define integers which represent the ``time" required to exchange i for j, the ``difficulty" in determining the exchange ratio, and the ``dimension" of the offer space in i; and refer to these as time- , price and message- complexity of the mechanism. Our second result is that there are only a finite number of minimally complex mechanisms, which moreover correspond to certain directed graphs G in a precise sense. The edges of G can be regarded as markets for commodity pairs, and prices play a stronger role in that the return to a trader depends only on his own offer and the prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Pradeep Dubey & Siddhartha Sahi & Martin Shubik, 2014. "Minimally complex exchange mechanisms: Emergence of prices, markets, and money," Department of Economics Working Papers 14-01, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:nys:sunysb:14-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sunysb.edu/economics/research/papers/2014/SB-revisedWP.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hahn, F H, 1971. "Equilibrium with Transaction Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 39(3), pages 417-439, May.
    2. Dubey, Pradeep & Geanakoplos, John, 2003. "From Nash to Walras via Shapley-Shubik," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(5-6), pages 391-400, July.
    3. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Eric S. Maskin, 1996. "A Walrasian Theory of Money and Barter," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(4), pages 955-1005.
    4. Li, Yiting & Wright, Randall, 1998. "Government Transaction Policy, Media of Exchange, and Prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 290-313, August.
    5. Peck, James & Shell, Karl & Spear, Stephen E., 1992. "The market game: existence and structure of equilibrium," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 271-299.
    6. Ostroy, Joseph M & Starr, Ross M, 1974. "Money and the Decentralization of Exchange," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(6), pages 1093-1113, November.
    7. ., 2012. "Why is There Money?," Chapters,in: Why is there Money?, chapter 1 Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. James Peck & Karl Shell, 1991. "Market Uncertainty: Correlated and Sunspot Equilibria in Imperfectly Competitive Economies," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(5), pages 1011-1029.
    9. Heller, Walter Perrin, 1974. "The holding of money balances in general equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 93-108, January.
    10. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-954, August.
    11. Mertens, J. F., 2003. "The limit-price mechanism," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(5-6), pages 433-528, July.
    12. Dubey, Pradeep, 1982. "Price-Quantity Strategic Market Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 111-126, January.
    13. Dubey, Pradeep & Shapley, Lloyd S., 1994. "Noncooperative general exchange with a continuum of traders: Two models," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 253-293, May.
    14. Dubey, Pradeep & Mas-Colell, Andreau & Shubik, Martin, 1980. "Efficiency properties of strategies market games: An axiomatic approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 339-362, April.
    15. Sahi, Siddhartha & Yao, Shuntian, 1989. "The non-cooperative equilibria of a trading economy with complete markets and consistent prices," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 325-346, September.
    16. 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.
    17. Jones, Robert A, 1976. "The Origin and Development of Media of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 757-775, August.
    18. Ostroy, Joseph M, 1973. "The Informational Efficiency of Monetary Exchange," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(4), pages 597-610, September.
    19. Shapley, Lloyd S & Shubik, Martin, 1977. "Trade Using One Commodity as a Means of Payment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(5), pages 937-968, October.
    20. Dubey, Pradeep & Sahi, Siddhartha, 2003. "Price-mediated trade with quantity signals: an axiomatic approach," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(5-6), pages 377-389, July.
    21. Foley, Duncan K., 1970. "Economic equilibrium with costly marketing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 276-291, September.
    22. Howitt, Peter & Clower, Robert, 2000. "The emergence of economic organization," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 55-84, January.
    23. Ross M. Starr, 2012. "Why is there Money?," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13763.
    24. David Starrett, 1973. "Inefficiency and the Demand for "Money" in a Sequence Economy," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(4), pages 437-448.
    25. Iwai, Katsuhito, 1996. "The bootstrap theory of money: A search-theoretic foundation of monetary economics," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 451-477, December.
    26. Menger, Carl, 1892. "On the Origins of Money," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 2, pages 239-255.
    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. Martin Shubik, 2016. "Three Essays on the Theory of Money and Financial Institutions Essay 3: The Economy with Innovation, Externalities and Context," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2067, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    2. Pradeep Dubey & Siddhartha Sahi & Martin Shubik, 2015. "Money as Minimal Complexity," Department of Economics Working Papers 15-01, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C79 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Other
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nys:sunysb:14-01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/edstous.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.