| الوصف: |
Recent work in monetary economics has raised serious questions about the validity of the basis on which monetary theory is built. The questions and criticisms raised by economists such as Hicks [5], Pesek and Saving [8], Clower [2], [3] and others, and the discussions generated by them,2 are enough reason to re-appraise the basic formulation of a theory of money. When monetary theorists still can argue about the role of money, about the meaning of the price of money, and about the meaning of an optimum quantity of money (and its rate of growth), it is clear, to say the least, that a more rigorous formulation of a theory of money is needed. The crucial issue that has been raised by these discussions is whether current monetary theory provides a rationale for the holding of money; in Clower's words ([3], p. 877), ". . . there exists no accepted or acceptable microeconomic formulation for the theory of an economy in which money plays an essential role as a means of payments". If monetary theory provides no rationale for the holding of money, many of the conclusions of currently accepted monetary theory, which derive from treating money like any other good or factor in the utility function or the production function, become unacceptable. We will follow the example of the recent works in monetary theory of tracing out the transition from a barter economy to an economy with commodity money before examining an economy with fiat money. In Sections I and II we examine an economy in which the only function of money is that of a medium of exchange; its only role is to facilitate transactions. In Section I it is argued that much of the confusion arising in the analysis of the medium-of-exchange function of money, comes from putting too great an emphasis on money as a means of reducing the search costs inherent in a barter system.3 The neglect of the role of money in reducing the transactions costs inherent in a barter system is due partly to the habit of examining money within the |
