American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Gift Exchange versus Monetary Exchange: Theory and Evidence
American Economic Review
vol. 104,
no. 6, June 2014
(pp. 1735–76)
Abstract
We study the Lagos and Wright (2005) model of monetary exchange in the laboratory. With a finite population of sufficiently patient agents, this model has a unique monetary equilibrium and a continuum of non-monetary gift exchange equilibria, some of which Pareto dominate the monetary equilibrium. We find that subjects avoid the gift-exchange equilibria in favor of the monetary equilibrium. We also study versions of the model without money where all equilibria involve non-monetary gift-exchange. We find that welfare is higher in the model with money than without money, suggesting that money plays a role as an efficiency enhancing coordination device.Citation
Duffy, John, and Daniela Puzzello. 2014. "Gift Exchange versus Monetary Exchange: Theory and Evidence." American Economic Review 104 (6): 1735–76. DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.6.1735Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C92 Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Group Behavior
- D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
- E40 Money and Interest Rates: General
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Social and Economic Stratification