Barter models ∗

This paper presents a family of models that involve a pair of actors that aim at bartering the goods from two privately owned pools of heterogeneous goods. The barter can occur only once or can be a repeated process with possibilities of retaliation and can involve either a single good or a basket of goods from each actor. We are indeed going to examine both the basic symmetric model (one-to-one barter) and its extensions (one-to-many, many-to-one and many-tomany barters), none of which reproduces a symmetric situation. The paper opens with some basic criteria and a brief description of some classical solutions, then it gives the basic motivation of the models followed by some definitions and then switch to the descriptions of the models in an increasing complexity order. The paper closes with a section devoted to some applications, some sections devoted to two more “hybrid” models and a section devoted to conclusions and future plans.