In the decentralized market, agents engage in bilateral exchanges for which money is essential. The model is estimated and evaluated based on postwar U.S. data. They document its money demand properties and determine the optimal long-run inflation rate that trades off the New Keynesian distortion against the distortion caused by taxing money and hence transactions in the decentralized market. The authors find that target rates of -1 percent or less are desirable, which contrasts with policy recommendations derived from a cashless New Keynesian model.

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