In decentralized trade individuals self-insure against consumption risk via costly diversification of skills. Although money acts as a consumption insurance, it may lead to a moral hazard problem. If the problem is severe, monetizing trade can lower welfare relative to barter

We propose a duopoly model of competition between internet search engines endowed with different technologies and study the effects of an agreement where the more advanced firm shares its technology with the inferior one. We show that the superior firm enters the agreement only if it results in...