This paper considers reform possibilities posed by a type of base money that has heretofore been overlooked in the literature on monetary economics. I call this sort of money "synthetic" commodity money because it shares features with both commodity money and fiat money, as these are usually...

This paper presents a model in which safe assets are systemic because they are the medium of exchange for risky assets. It connects the literature from banking and finance on safe assets to the monetary literature on alternative monetary systems involving commodity money, interest bearing money,...

This paper presents a model in which safe assets are systemic because they are the medium of exchange for risky assets. Like commodity money, these assets are costly to produce and have some intrinsic value, resulting in (a) non-neutrality and (b) overproduction. Quantitatively, the welfare...

We construct a continuous-time, pure currency economy with the following three key features. First, our modelled economy incorporates idiosyncratic uncertainty—households receive infrequent and random opportunities of lumpy consumption—and displays an endogenous, non-degenerate distribution...

Modern exchange theories model a large market, but do not explain single exchanges. This paper considers the phenomenon of single exchange and formulates the general exchange problem in the form of a system of two equations, subjective and objective. Subjective equilibrium is given by the...

Whether a theoretical system is realistic or not has been a concern in economics, particularly in monetary theory, over the past century. Following John R. Hicks' proposal that a realistic monetary theory could be constructed along an evolutionary path, starting with the workings of a real...

The success of alternative payment systems has led to discussion of various proposals to replace money with a new technology-based system, though many lack a clear idea of what exactly is the “money” they seek to replace. We begin by presenting the explanation of money’s role in the...

It is clear by now that pure exchange models are useless. For two reasons. First, because exchange is the other side of specialization in production, and, second, because a direct exchange of goods does not take place in the monetary economy. The decisive drawback of conventional exchange...

The success of alternative payment systems has led to discussion of various proposals to replace money with a new technology-based system, though many lack a clear idea of what exactly is the "money" they seek to replace. We begin by presenting the explanation of money's role in the economy...