The introduction and widespread use of credit cards increases trading efficiency but, by also increasing the velocity of money, it causes inflation, in the absence of monetary intervention. If the monetary authority attempts to restore pre-credit card price levels by reducing the money supply,...

We introduce grading into games of status. Each player chooses effort, producing a stochastic output or score. Utilities depend on the ranking of all the scores. By clustering scores into grades, the ranking is coarsened, and the incentives to work are changed. We apply games of status to...

We build a one-period general equilibrium model with money. Equilibrium exists, and fiat money has positive value, as long as the ratio of outside money to inside money is less than the gains to trade available at autarky. We show that the nominal effects of government fiscal and monetary policy...

Gold and tobacco have both been used as commodity money. One difference between the two is that gold yields utility, on account of its beauty, without diminishing its quantity. Tobacco yields utility when it is consumed. If this were the only difference, Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin...

We build a finite horizon model with inside and outside money, in which interest rates, price levels and commodity allocations are determinate, even though asset markets are incomplete and asset deliveries are purely nominal. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2006