Money is more than memory

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bigoni, Maria; Camera, Gabriele; Casari, Marco
• 署名单位: University of Bologna; IZA Institute Labor Economics; Chapman University System; Chapman University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2019.01.002
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 99-115
• 关键词: cooperation; Intertemporal trade; experiments; institutions; social norms

摘要

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. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.