Incentives to produce quality and the liquidity of money (*)

I study a version of the Williamson-Wright (1994) model that results from ruling out direct barter. Although one can no longer argue that the value of money comes exclusively from private information, one can use the simplified model to address a variety of other issues. In particular, one can characterize analytically the set of equilibria and their properties. One can also analyze the trade-off between providing liquidity to facilitate trade and providing incentives to produce high quality, and address some other issues related to policy and welfare, including the effects of inflation on the incentives to produce high quality.