From: Ian Wright (iwright@GMAIL.COM)
Date: Thu May 27 2004 - 15:27:32 EDT
>But, to me, the overwhelming merit of Menger is that he insists on the spontaneous >emergence of money within the market and through economic processes. Just as a point of interest, this paper: Ramon Marimon, Ellen McGrattan, Thomas Sargent. Money as a medium of exchange in an economy with artificially intelligent agents. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 14 (1990), 329-373. is a constructive proof of the possibility of the emergence of a money commodity via economic exchange. I once replicated this computational experiment with a student. The main conclusion is that it is very easy for the money commodity to be selected via a social convention that emerges over time via local exchanges. All it requires is some very basic learning and memory on the part of the agents. I agree that Marx presents a causal story of the endogenous emergence of money. -Ian.
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