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Journal Article
The tale of Gresham's law
Gresham?s law, which says that bad money tends to drive good money out of circulation, may account for many nations? episodes of money troubles, as far back as ancient Athens. This Commentary discusses the two main explanations for Gresham?s law and suggests some circumstances in which the law does not apply.
Working Paper
On the recognizability of money
This paper develops a model of currency circulation under asymmetric information. Agents are heterogeneous and trade in bilateral matches. Coins are intrinsically valuable and are available in two weights, light and heavy. We characterize the equilibrium under complete information and under imperfect information about the quality of coins. We determine a set of conditions under which the two currencies circulate and are traded according to different terms of trade. We study how output, welfare, and the velocity of currency are affected by the recognizability of coins. We show that society's ...