ABSTRACT
Striving for the essence of money, theoreticians come to a point where it is no longer possible to deal with money as if it were a commodity. Fiat money, as an intermediary of exchange, has a positive price at equilibrium but is generally not neutral. Fiat money is not useful for production or consumption. Money essentiality is a property common to many search-theoretic models. The modern quest for essentiality may be viewed as providing an analytical foundation to the old myth of barter. The story changes when either money or memory is introduced. Kocherlakota's money is fiat money. Kocherlakota demonstrates that the set of equilibrium allocations permitted by money is a subset of the set of equilibrium allocations permitted by memory. In short, money is no better than memory. Money and decentralization go along together according to academic theory. In the academic theory of money, as in value theory in general, money is conceived of as a special commodity.
