Money is more than memory

Maria Bigoni, Gabriele Camera and Marco Casari

Working Papers from Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna

Abstract: Impersonal exchange is the hallmark of an advanced society and money is one key institution that supports it. Economic theory regards money as a crude arrangement for monitoring counterparts past conduct. If so, then a public record of past actions or memory should supersede the function performed by money. This intriguing theoretical postulate remains untested. In an experiment, we show that the suggested functional equivalence between money and memory does not translate into an empirical equivalence. Monetary systems perform a richer set of functions than just revealing past behaviors, which are crucial in promoting large-scale cooperation.

JEL-codes: C70 C90 D03 E02 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Money is more than memory (2020)
Working Paper: Money Is More Than Memory (2018)
Working Paper: Money is More than a Memory (2014)
Working Paper: Money is more than memory (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1030

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