A model of banknote discounts
Laurence Ales,
Francesca Carapella,
Pricila Maziero and
Warren Weber
Journal of Economic Theory, 2008, vol. 142, issue 1, 5-27
Abstract:
Prior to 1863, state-chartered banks in the United States issued notes--dollar-denominated promises to pay specie to the bearer on demand. Although these notes circulated at par locally, they usually were quoted at a discount outside the local area. These discounts varied by both the location of the bank and the location where the discount was being quoted. Further, these discounts were asymmetric across locations, meaning that the discounts quoted in location A on the notes of banks in location B generally differed from the discounts quoted in location B on the notes of banks in location A. Also, discounts generally increased when banks suspended payments on their notes. In this paper we construct a random matching model to qualitatively match these facts about banknote discounts. To attempt to account for locational differences, the model has agents that come from two distinct locations. Each location also has bankers that can issue notes. Banknotes are accepted in exchange because banks are required to produce when a banknote is presented for redemption and their past actions are public information. Overall, the model delivers predictions consistent with the behavior of discounts.
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022-0531(06)00201-8
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
Working Paper: A model of banknote discounts (2006) 
Working Paper: A model of banknote discounts (2006) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:142:y:2008:i:1:p:5-27
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Economic Theory is currently edited by A. Lizzeri and K. Shell
More articles in Journal of Economic Theory from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().