When commitment is lacking, intertemporal trade is facilitated with the use of exchange media — interpreted broadly to include monetary and collateral assets. We study the properties of a model commonly used to motivate monetary exchange, extended to include a physical asset whose expected...

When commitment is lacking, intertemporal trade is facilitated with the use of exchange media--interpreted broadly to include monetary and collateral assets. We study the properties of a model commonly used to motivate monetary exchange, extended to include a physical asset whose expected...