There are two general ways in which the role of fiat money has been introduced in the standard monetary search-theoretical model. The first is to bring in the model a fiat object with different intrinsic properties. The second is to introduce a centralized institution that favors the use of fiat...

Why do people coordinate on the use of valueless pieces of paper as generally accepted money? A possible answer is that these objects have intrinsic properties that make them better candidates to be used as media of exchange. Another answer stresses the fact that unconvertible fiat money will...

Models of the exchange process based on search theory can be used to analyze the features of objects that make them more or less likely to emerge as ``money'' in equilibrium. These models illustrate the trade--off between endogenous acceptability (an equilibrium property) and intrinsic...

Why is money divisible? To explore this question we introduce a mismatch problem into search-theoretic models of monetary exchange. We use alternative assumptions about the divisibility of goods and money and the ability of agents to use lotteries on money. Our framework potentially generates...

In this paper we study the inefficiencies of the monetary equilibrium and optimal monetary policies in a search economy. We show that the same frictions that give fiat money a positive value generate an inefficient quantity of goods in each trade and an inefficient number of trades (or search...

This paper studies the role of money in environments where in each meeting there is a double coincidence of real wants. Traders who meet at random finance their purchases through current production, the sale of divisible money or both. It is shown that in the absence of valued money if traders...

In this paper we compare production inefficiencies in bilateral meetings generated by two types of trading frictions: double-coincidence frictions and information frictions. For both types of frictions, money enlarges the sets of incentive-feasible allocations relative to barter. In environments...

This paper studies the role of money in asymmetric double coincidence of real wants environments where in each meeting each agent is a consumer of the other agent's production. Traders who meet at random finance their purchases through current production, sale of divisible money, or both. It is...

Many search models of money rely on the double coincidence of real wants problem to generate a role for money and, for the sake of tractability, assume money to be indivisible. In this article, we study the implications of these two assumptions for the formation of the terms of trades and the...

In search-theoretic models of monetary economies, equivalence between money and memory is referred to gift-giving economies. Kocherlakota and Iwai obtain on this basis interesting results. In this paper it is argued that such results should not be interpreted as their authors suggest it. As soon...