MONEY AS A MECHANISM IN A BEWLEY ECONOMY*

Abstract

We investigate the efficiency property of a monetary economy with spot trade. We prove a conjecture that is essentially due to Bewley ( Models of Monetary Economics (1980); Econometrica 51 (1983), 1485–504). The gist is that monetary spot trading is nearly efficient ex ante in an environment where very patient agents can accumulate large enough money stocks to be completely self‐insured. We also study examples where a nonmonetary mechanism is preferred ex ante to any monetary mechanism in a stationary environment, and where an inflationary monetary mechanism is preferred ex ante to a laissez‐faire or deflationary monetary mechanism in an environment with impatient agents.