Decentralized credit and monetary exchange without public record keeping

We relax a standard assumption on the matching technology in a search model of money. In particular, agents may remain in a long-term partnership as long as it is in their self-interest. With this simple modification, it is possible to support self-enforcing, intertemporal trade which resembles credit without a public record keeping device. We examine conditions for co-existence of currency and credit and the welfare gains/losses associated with the introduction of money. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2004