Money is more than memory

Maria Bigoni, Gabriele Camera and Marco Casari

No 496, CFS Working Paper Series from Center for Financial Studies (CFS)

Abstract: Impersonal exchange is the hallmark of an advanced society. One key institution for impersonal exchange is money, which economic theory considers just a primitive arrangement for monitoring past conduct in society. If so, then a public record of past actions - or memory - supersedes the function performed by money. This intriguing theoretical postulate remains untested. In an experiment, we show that the suggested functional equality 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 proves to be crucial in promoting large-scale cooperation.

Keywords: cooperation; intertemporal trade; experiments; social norms; social dilemmas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 C90 D03 E02 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-mac and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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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 memory (2015)
Working Paper: Money is More than a Memory (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cfswop:496

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