Vockermo: Money?

What do You Know About Money?

medium_money_exchanged

Money is a good that acts as a medium of exchange in transactions. Classically it is said that money acts as a unit of account, a store of value, and a medium of exchange.

Most authors find that the first two are nonessential properties that follow from the third. In fact, other goods are often better than money at being inter temporal stores of value, since most monies degrade in value over time through inflation or the overthrow of governments.

In other definition, money is any object or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a particular country or socio-economic context.

The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past, a standard of deferred payment. Any kind of object or verifiable record that fulfils these functions can be considered money.

Money is historically an emergent market phenomenon establishing commodity money, but nearly all contemporary money systems are based on fiat money. Fiat money, like any check or note of debt, is without intrinsic use value as a physical commodity.

It derives its value by being declared by a government to be legal tender; that is, it must be accepted as a form of payment within the boundaries of the country, for "all debts, public and private". Such laws in practice cause fiat money to acquire the value of any of the goods and services that it may be traded for within the nation that issues it.

The money supply of a country consists of currency (banknotes and coins) and usually includes bank money (the balance held in checking accounts and savings accounts). Bank money, which consists only of records (mostly computerized in modern banking), forms by far the largest part of broad money in developed countries.