In “The Inefficiency of Interest-Bearing National Debt,” (JPE, April 1979) we argued that private sector transaction costs are needed in order to explain interest on government debt. It follows that if the government’s transaction costs do not depend on its portfolio, then, barring special...

Monetary policy is analyzed within a model that ignores transaction costs and appeals solely to legal restrictions on private intermediation to explain the coexistence of currency and interest-bearing default-free bonds. The interaction between such legal restrictions and monetary policy is...

Our suggestion consists of three postulates: assets are valued only in terms of their payoffs, perfect foresight, and complete and costless markets under laissez-faire. Together these postulates imply that the crucial anomaly, rate-of-return dominance of “money,” is to be explained by legal...

This paper presents a simple coherent general equilibrium example in which optimal provision of a public good implies counter-cyclical government expenditure.

An alternative solution concept is recommended for noncooperative games with multiple equilibra. Players maximize security level in a contracted game. Examples in economics are given in which this solution concept yields a unique solution: a fiat money model, the capital overaccumulation...

Long-term contracts are explained as equilibrium strategies of supergames. In the specific coherent general equilibrium model provided, limited mobility of labor, in the form of a fixed cost of moving, generates long-term contracts.