Thick Market Externality and Concentration of Money
Abstract
A thick market external effect is applied to a trading post model of \( N\geq 3 \) commodities with transaction costs and distinct bid and ask prices. We state and prove an existence theorem for general equilibrium with external effects in the trading post model. Media of exchange occur endogenously as liquid commodities, characterized by a narrow bid/ask price spread. The thick market externality can lead to concentration of the endogenously determined media of exchange towards an equilibrium with a single medium. In a class of examples, we show that if the households have sufficiently heterogeneous tastes relative to the size of the economy, the monetary equilibrium leads to higher consumption than the barter equilibrium.
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Pietro Emilio Spini
Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Economics
Welcome to my personal page! I am a Lecturer (Assistant professor) at the University of Bristol, where I started in September 2022. I received my PhD in Economics from the University of California, San Diego. My research focus is in Econometrics and Policy Evaluation. I study how to robustify causal inference procedures against data limitations that typically arise in applied economic research.