Monnaie et termes de l'échange dans les modèles de prospection

Many search models of money rely on the double coincidence of real wants problem to generate a role for money and, for the sake of tractability, assume money to be indivisible. In this article, we study the implications of these two assumptions for the formation of the terms of trades and the purchasing power of money. In the First part of the paper we show that the indivisibility of money introduces in efficiencies into the formation of the terms of trade that are not present when money is divisible. These inefficiencies also affect the purchasing power of money and this can lead to questionable policy recommendations such as a positive welfare maximising inflation tax. In the second part of the paper, in a model with divisible money, we show that money can be valued in double coincidence of real wants environments where in each meeting each trader is a consumer of the other agent?s production. We show that in the absence of valued money if traders have asymmetric preferences for each others? goods, they produce and exchange socially inefficient quantities. With valued money, however, if the preference asymmetry is not too large, they exchange efficient quantities. Moreover, we demonstrate that the terms of trade are strictly better in a monetary economy relative to the corresponding barter economy and that the Friedman rule holds. Classification JEL : E00, D83, E52