Ross M. Starr, University of California, San Diego, US

• Contents: Introduction: Why is There No Money? 1. Why is There Money? 2. An Economy Without Money 3. The Trading Post Model 4. An Elementary Linear Example: Liquidity Creates Money 5. Absence of Double Coincidence of Wants is Essential to Monetization in a Linear Economy 6. Uniqueness of Money: Scale Economy and Network Externality 7. Monetization of General Equilibrium 8. Government-Issued Fiat Money 9. Efficient Structure of Exchange 10. Microfoundations of Jevons’s Double Coincidence Condition 11. Commodity Money Equilibrium in a Convex Trading Post Economy 12. Efficiency of Commodity Money Equilibrium 13. Alternative Models 14. Conclusion and a Research Agenda Bibliography Index

‘Starr’s brilliant little volume is the latest of a long line of attempts to integrate money and price (general equilibrium) theory. Within 160 pages and 14 dense chapters, the author synthesizes forty years of careful and painstaking research. He sets them against the background not only of the tradition inaugurated by Walras and carried on by Pareto, Hicks, Patinkin, Samuelson, Clower, Hahn, Kyotaki and Wright (to name but a few) but also of the no-less famous conflict between trust and authority at the origin of money (Frankel, 1977). Hence, and before discussing Starr’s trading post model, it seems not out of place to recall briefly the analytical history of these two central riddles in monetary theory.’

Ross M. Starr, University of California, San Diego, US

• Contents: Introduction: Why is There No Money? 1. Why is There Money? 2. An Economy Without Money 3. The Trading Post Model 4. An Elementary Linear Example: Liquidity Creates Money 5. Absence of Double Coincidence of Wants is Essential to Monetization in a Linear Economy 6. Uniqueness of Money: Scale Economy and Network Externality 7. Monetization of General Equilibrium 8. Government-Issued Fiat Money 9. Efficient Structure of Exchange 10. Microfoundations of Jevons’s Double Coincidence Condition 11. Commodity Money Equilibrium in a Convex Trading Post Economy 12. Efficiency of Commodity Money Equilibrium 13. Alternative Models 14. Conclusion and a Research Agenda Bibliography Index

‘Starr’s brilliant little volume is the latest of a long line of attempts to integrate money and price (general equilibrium) theory. Within 160 pages and 14 dense chapters, the author synthesizes forty years of careful and painstaking research. He sets them against the background not only of the tradition inaugurated by Walras and carried on by Pareto, Hicks, Patinkin, Samuelson, Clower, Hahn, Kyotaki and Wright (to name but a few) but also of the no-less famous conflict between trust and authority at the origin of money (Frankel, 1977). Hence, and before discussing Starr’s trading post model, it seems not out of place to recall briefly the analytical history of these two central riddles in monetary theory.’

Ross M. Starr, University of California, San Diego, US

• Contents: Introduction: Why is There No Money? 1. Why is There Money? 2. An Economy Without Money 3. The Trading Post Model 4. An Elementary Linear Example: Liquidity Creates Money 5. Absence of Double Coincidence of Wants is Essential to Monetization in a Linear Economy 6. Uniqueness of Money: Scale Economy and Network Externality 7. Monetization of General Equilibrium 8. Government-Issued Fiat Money 9. Efficient Structure of Exchange 10. Microfoundations of Jevons’s Double Coincidence Condition 11. Commodity Money Equilibrium in a Convex Trading Post Economy 12. Efficiency of Commodity Money Equilibrium 13. Alternative Models 14. Conclusion and a Research Agenda Bibliography Index

‘Starr’s brilliant little volume is the latest of a long line of attempts to integrate money and price (general equilibrium) theory. Within 160 pages and 14 dense chapters, the author synthesizes forty years of careful and painstaking research. He sets them against the background not only of the tradition inaugurated by Walras and carried on by Pareto, Hicks, Patinkin, Samuelson, Clower, Hahn, Kyotaki and Wright (to name but a few) but also of the no-less famous conflict between trust and authority at the origin of money (Frankel, 1977). Hence, and before discussing Starr’s trading post model, it seems not out of place to recall briefly the analytical history of these two central riddles in monetary theory.’