We use a laboratory experiment to compare general equilibrium economies in which agents individually allocate their private goods among consumption, investment in production and maintenance of a depreciating public facility. The public facility is financed either by voluntary anonymous...

We consider mechanisms that provide traders the opportunity to exchange commodity i for commodity j, for certain ordered pairs ij. Given any connected graph G of opportunities, we show that there is a unique mechanism M_G that satisfies some natural conditions of "fairness" and "convenience."...

In previous work, the current authors derived a mathematical expression for the optimal (or quot;saturationquot;) number of reinsurers for a given number of primary insurers (see Powers and Shubik, 2001). In the current paper, we show analytically that, for large numbers of primary insurers,...

We show by an iterated process of price normalization that there generically exists a price-normalizing bundle that determines a credit money, such that the enlargement of the general-equilibrium structure to allow for default subject to an appropriate credit limit and default penalty for each...

The enlargement of the general-equilibrium structure to allow default subject to penalties results in a construction of a simple mechanism for selecting a unique competitive equilibrium. We consider economies for which a common credit money can be applied to uniquely select any competitive...

Three models of a monetary economy are considered, in order to show the effects of a gold demonetization: the first with a gold money, the second with demonetized gold but no central bank, and the third with demonetized gold, but with a central bank. The distinctions between ownership and...

We compare general equilibrium economies in which building and maintenance of a depreciating public facility is financed either by anonymous voluntary contributions or by taxing agents on their income from private production. Agents start with an endowment of private goods and money, while the...

Three models of a monetary economy are considered, in order to show the effects of a gold demonetization: the first with a gold money, the second with demonetized gold but no central bank, and the third with demonetized gold, but with a central bank. The distinctions between ownership and...