The classical and early neoclassical economists knew that the essential function of money was its role as a medium of exchange; Recently, this idea has been formalized using search-theoretic noncooperative equilibrium models of the exchange process. The goal of this paper is to use a simple model...

The essential function of money is its role as a medium of exchange. The authors formalize this idea using a search-theoretic equilibrium model of the exchange process that captures the "double coincidence of wants problem" with pure barter. One advantage of the framework described here is that...

The authors analyze economies in which individuals specialize in consumption and production and meet randomly over time in a way that implies that trade must be bilateral and quid pro quo. Nash equilibria in trading strategies are characterized. Certain goods emerge endogenously as media of...

How important is monopolistic competition to an understanding of the effects of aggregate demand on output? The authors ask this question at three levels. Can monopolistic competition, by itself, explain why aggregate demand affects output? Can it, together with other imperfections, generate...

The paper studies under what conditions the value of the firm occasionally increases for a while before it suddenly drops, like a "bubble". We consider the environment where the trend of net cash flow from a firm's production depends on uncertain quality of a manager, and the manager is...

We develop a canonical framework to think about credit market frictions and aggregate economic activity in the context of the current crisis. We use the framework to address two issues in particular: first, how disruptions in financial intermediation can induce a crisis that affects real...

We study theoretically how the adjustment to liberalization of international financial transaction depends upon the degree of domestic financial development. Using a model with domestic and international borrowing constraints, we show that, when the domestic financial system is underdeveloped,...