Money and exchange in an economy with spatially differentiated agents
The impact of money supply on the real variables and on utility is an important question in monetary economics. Most previous works study this impact in representative agent economies, often under perfect foresight. With such a framework, however, the use of fiat money as a medium of exchange cannot be endogenously explained. This paper, by contrast, considers an economy where fiat money is intrinsically necessary for exchange, due to the local structure of interaction among agents. It investigates the transitory and permanent impact of local or global injections of money on the dynamics of exchanged quantities, prices, and individual welfares, and the mechanisms that explain this evolution.
The milk supply chain has been interested by great changes during the last two decades and, in particular, there has been a great trade liberalization and a conspicuous policy change due to the abolition of milk quotas. These market changes are likely to have had a large impact on the transmission of price along the supply chain. Our analysis aims at exploring how market changes have altered vertical price transmission, and, in particular, how asymmetries have changes over tims. We use an asymmetric error correction model to infer on short run and long-run adjustments and conclude on the potential role played by market changes.