Money and Reciprocity

Based on an experimental analysis of a simple monetary economy we argue that a monetary system is more stable than one would expect from individual rationality. We show that positive reciprocity stabilizes the monetary system, provided every participant considers the feedbacks of his choice to the stationary equilibrium. If however the participants do not play stationary strategies and some participants notoriously refuse to accept money then due to negative reciprocity their behavior will eventually induce a break down of the monetary system.