Endogenous Market Formation and Monetary Trade: An Experiment
通过一个“旅行博弈”实验，研究分散化与集中化交换的内生形成，发现货币交易在协调困难时出现，而集中交易在其他情况下出现，对理解货币的起源有重要意义。
Abstract The theory of money assumes decentralized bilateral exchange and excludes centralized multilateral exchange. However, endogenizing the exchange process is critical for understanding the conditions that support the use of money. We develop a “traveling game” to study the emergence of decentralized and centralized exchange, theoretically and experimentally. Players located on separate islands can either trade locally, or pay a cost to trade elsewhere, so decentralized and centralized markets can both emerge in equilibrium. The former minimize trade costs through monetary exchange; the latter maximizes overall surplus through nonmonetary exchange. Monetary trade emerges when coordination is problematic, whereas centralized trade emerges otherwise. This shows that to understand the emergence of money it is important to amend standard theory such that the market structure is endogenized.