Money Is More Than Memory

Maria Bigoni, Gabriele Camera and Marco Casari

Working Papers from Chapman University, Economic Science Institute

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: money removed the incentives to free ride, while memory did not. Monetary systems performed a richer set of functions than just revealing past behaviors.

Keywords: Cooperation; intertemporal trade; experiments; institutions; social norms. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 C90 D03 E40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hpe, nep-mac, nep-mon, nep-pay and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/esi_working_papers/255/

Related works:
Journal Article: Money is more than memory (2020)
Working Paper: Money is more than memory (2015)
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:chu:wpaper:18-17

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