A government can promote the use of an object as the general medium of exchange by accepting it in tax payments. I prove this old claim in a dynamic model and compare the mechanism to convertibility. The government can often keep its favourite money in circulation even while increasing its...

The aim of this paper is to theoretically analyse the issues concerning the introduction of alternative moneys. A brief performance evaluation of the current monetary system, as well as two alternatives, namely gold and a private currency, i.e. the Swiss WIR, is followed by a historical look at...