Economic Organization with Limited Communication

Robert Townsend

American Economic Review, 1987, vol. 77, issue 5, 954-71

Abstract: In environments with spatial separation and private information, beneficial multilateral arrangements can depend critically on the ability of agents to communicate to one an other values of contemporary shocks and to keep track of histories of past transfers or past announced shocks. This paper formalizes this idea and focuses on communication-accounting systems. The theory of this paper allows a formal, stylized representation of a variety of systems and allows one to make precise the sense in which various systems are more or less limited. Oral assignment systems, portable object systems, written message systems, and telecommunication systems are considered. Copyright 1987 by American Economic Association.

Date: 1987
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