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...

This paper uses an evolutionary approach to explain the origin of money as media of exchange in a primitive economy, where agents specialize in production for the purpose of trading for their own consumption goods. A general class of dynamics, which is consistent with Darwinian dynamics, is...

There has been considerable research into dynamic global tactical asset allocation (GTAA) strategies driven by simple measures of Valuation and Momentum applied to a baseline balanced portfolio of equities and fixed income (see Blitz and van Vliet 2008, Wang and Kochard 2011, Gnedenko and Yelnik...

What would you do if you were invited to play a game where you were given $25 and allowed to place bets for 30 minutes on a coin that you were told was biased to come up heads 60% of the time? This is exactly what we did, gathering 61 young, quantitatively trained men and women to play this...

We develop theoretical underpinnings of pairwise random matching processes. We formalize the mechanics of matching, and study the links between properties of the different processes and trade frictions. A particular emphasis is placed on providing a mapping between matching technologies and...

We develop a general procedure to construct pairwise meeting processes characterized by two features. First, in each period the process maximizes the number of matches in the population. Second, over time agents meet everybody else exactly once. We call this type of meetings “absolute...

We study abstract macroeconomic systems in which expectations play an important role. Consistent with the recent literature on recursive learning and expectations, we replace the agents in the economy with econometricians. Unlike the recursive learning literature, however, the econometricians in...

Investors are periodically challenged with this question: with funds ready to invest, but faced with a market that is generally perceived to be expensive, is it better to wait for a market correction before investing? Many investors are certain that a correction must be around the corner, and...

Benjamin Franklin's original maxim found in Poor Richard's Almanac was actually "A penny saved is two pence clear" rather than the more commonly known "A penny saved is a penny earned." We believe he was getting at the notion that one risk-free penny is worth two pennies of expected but...