We introduce a model of the economy as a social network. Two agents are linked to the extent that they transact with each other. This generates well-defined topological notions of location, neighborhood and closeness. We investigate the implications of our model for monetary economics. When a...

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...

We construct a tractable model of divisible money and equilibrium heterogeneity in money balances and prices. We do so by considering randomized monetary trades in a standard search-theoretic model of money where agents can hold multiple units of indivisible 'tokens'. By studying a simple...

This paper analyzes awards as a means of motivation prevalent in the scientific community, but so far neglected in the economic literature on incentives, and discusses their relationship to monetary compensation. Awards are better suited than performance pay to reward scientific tasks, which are...

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...

This paper studies the joint business cycle dynamics of in ation, money growth, nominal and real interest rates and the velocity of money. I extend and estimate a standard cash and credit monetary model by adding idiosyncratic preference shocks to cash consumption as well as a banking sector....

This paper studies the validity of the Friedman rule in a search model with divisible money and divisible goods where the terms of trades are determined endogenously. We show that ex post bargaining generates a holdup problem similar to the one emphasized in the labour-market literature. Buyers...

This paper investigates the role of fiat money in decentralized markets, where producers have private information about the quality of the goods they supply. Money is divisible, terms of trade are determined endogenously, and agents can finance their consumption with money or with real...

In many situations, some people hold large money balances but have no particular urgency to spend them while others are liquidity constrained. This problem creates a role for financial intermediaries who accept nominal deposits and make nominal loans. We show that financial intermediation...

We use alternative assumptions about the divisibility of goods and money and the ability of agents to use lotteries on money to investigate to what extent the indivisibility of money is the cause for the typically inefficient production and consumption decisions in search-theoretic models of...