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76-397: A financial secretary oversees policy concerning the flow of financial resources like money in and out of an organization. The officer sometimes determines policy concerning the purchase or sale of goods and services, collection of dues and employment . The officer implements policy with the cooperation of other executives. Financial secretary can also be the title of a cabinet member in

152-470: A medium of exchange or a standard of deferred payment due to transport and storage concerns and eventual spoilage . Gold or other metals are sometimes used in a price system as a durable, easily warehoused store of value ( demurrage ). The use of barter -like methods using commodity money may date back to at least 100,000 years ago. Trading in red ochre is attested in Eswatini , shell jewellery in

228-427: A monetary aggregate . Economists employ different ways to measure the stock of money or money supply, reflected in different types of monetary aggregates, using a categorization system that focuses on the liquidity of the financial instrument used as money. The most commonly used monetary aggregates (or types of money) are conventionally designated M1, M2, and M3. These are successively larger aggregate categories: M1

304-404: A standard of deferred payment . Money was historically an emergent market phenomenon that possessed intrinsic value as a commodity ; nearly all contemporary money systems are based on unbacked fiat money without use value . Its value is consequently derived by social convention, having been declared by a government or regulatory entity to be legal tender ; that is, it must be accepted as

380-459: A store of value : its role as a store of value requires holding it without spending, whereas its role as a medium of exchange requires it to circulate. Others argue that storing of value is just deferral of the exchange, but does not diminish the fact that money is a medium of exchange that can be transported both across space and time. The term "financial capital" is a more general and inclusive term for all liquid instruments, whether or not they are

456-978: A century when gold and paper money backed by gold were used as money in the 18th and 19th centuries. Commodity money Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects having value or use in themselves ( intrinsic value ) as well as their value in buying goods. This is in contrast to representative money , which has no intrinsic value but represents something of value such as gold or silver, for which it can be exchanged, and fiat money , which derives its value from having been established as money by government regulation. Examples of commodities that have been used as media of exchange include precious metals and stones , grain, animal parts (such as beaver pelts), tobacco , fuel , and others. Sometimes several types of commodity money were used together, with fixed relative values , in various commodity valuation or price system economies. Commodity money

532-472: A face value higher than its costs, the government gains a profit known as seigniorage . The role of a mint and of coin differs between commodity money and fiat money . In commodity money, the coin retains its value if it is melted and physically altered, while in a fiat money it does not. Usually, in a fiat money the value drops if the coin is converted to metal, but in a few cases the value of metals in fiat moneys have been allowed to rise to values larger than

608-444: A fixed quantity of a commodity such as gold or silver. The value of representative money stands in direct and fixed relation to the commodity that backs it, while not itself being composed of that commodity. Fiat money or fiat currency is money whose value is not derived from any intrinsic value or guarantee that it can be converted into a valuable commodity (such as gold). Instead, it has value only by government order (fiat). Usually,

684-532: A form of payment within the boundaries of the country, for "all debts, public and private", in the case of the United States dollar . The money supply of a country comprises all currency in circulation ( banknotes and coins currently issued) and, depending on the particular definition used, one or more types of bank money (the balances held in checking accounts , savings accounts , and other types of bank accounts ). Bank money, whose value exists on

760-415: A fraction of their deposits , while the banks maintain an obligation to redeem all these deposits upon demand - a practise known as fractional-reserve banking . Commercial bank money differs from commodity and fiat money in two ways: firstly it is non-physical, as its existence is only reflected in the account ledgers of banks and other financial institutions, and secondly, there is some element of risk that

836-473: A means for merchants to exchange heavy coinage for receipts of deposit issued as promissory notes from shops of wholesalers, notes that were valid for temporary use in a small regional territory. In the 10th century, the Song dynasty government began circulating these notes amongst the traders in their monopolized salt industry. The Song government granted several shops the sole right to issue banknotes, and in

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912-487: A metric of perceived value in conjunction with one another, in various commodity valuation or price system economies. The use of commodity money is similar to barter, but a commodity money provides a simple and automatic unit of account for the commodity which is being used as money. Although some gold coins such as the Krugerrand are considered legal tender , there is no record of their face value on either side of

988-455: A new unit of account , which helped lead to banking. Archimedes' principle provided the next link: coins could now be easily tested for their fine weight of the metal, and thus the value of a coin could be determined, even if it had been shaved, debased or otherwise tampered with (see Numismatics ). In most major economies using coinage, copper, silver, and gold formed three tiers of coins. Gold coins were used for large purchases, payment of

1064-418: A note has no intrinsic value, there was nothing to stop issuing authorities from printing more of it than they had specie to back it with. Second, because it increased the money supply, it increased inflationary pressures, a fact observed by David Hume in the 18th century. The result is that paper money would often lead to an inflationary bubble, which could collapse if people began demanding hard money, causing

1140-714: A number of former and current British dependencies. This is the case in Hong Kong (see Financial Secretary (Hong Kong) ), Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Helena, etc. In the United Kingdom, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is a junior minister position but the office holder attends the meetings of the cabinet. In some municipal and state governments , a financial secretary is an appointed or elected public official. This finance-related article

1216-400: A standard of deferred payment as a distinguished function, but rather subsuming it in the others. There have been many historical disputes regarding the combination of money's functions, some arguing that they need more separation and that a single unit is insufficient to deal with them all. One of these arguments is that the role of money as a medium of exchange conflicts with its role as

1292-487: A standard rate as well, so this created a viable currency in an economy where precious metals were not valued. However, for convenience, Hudson's Bay post managers exchanged made beaver coins , which were stamped pieces of copper or brass. Long after gold coins became rare in commerce, the Fort Knox gold repository of the United States functioned as a theoretical backing for Federal Reserve. Between 1933 and 1970 (when

1368-508: A system of representative money . This occurred because gold and silver merchants or banks would issue receipts to their depositors, redeemable for the commodity money deposited. Eventually, these receipts became generally accepted as a means of payment and were used as money. Paper money or banknotes were first used in China during the Song dynasty . These banknotes, known as " jiaozi ", evolved from promissory notes that had been used since

1444-695: A trade and market economy based originally on the commodity money of the Shekel , which was a certain weight measure of barley, while the Babylonians and their city-state neighbors later developed the earliest system of economics using a metric of various commodities, that was fixed in a legal code . Several centuries after the invention of cuneiform script , the use of writing expanded beyond debt/payment certificates and inventory lists to codified amounts of commodity money being used in contract law , such as buying property and paying legal fines . Today,

1520-411: A uniformly recognized tender. When money is used to intermediate the exchange of goods and services, it is performing a function as a medium of exchange . It thereby avoids the inefficiencies of a barter system, such as the inability to permanently ensure " coincidence of wants ". For example, between two parties in a barter system, one party may not have or make the item that the other wants, indicating

1596-405: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts , such as taxes , in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: medium of exchange , a unit of account , a store of value and sometimes,

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1672-404: Is also used. M0 is base money , or the amount of money actually issued by the central bank of a country. It is measured as currency plus deposits of banks and other institutions at the central bank. M0 is also the only money that can satisfy the reserve requirements of commercial banks . In current economic systems, money is created by two procedures: Legal tender , or narrow money (M0)

1748-429: Is currency (coins and bills) plus demand deposits (such as checking accounts); M2 is M1 plus savings accounts and time deposits under $ 100,000; M3 is M2 plus larger time deposits and similar institutional accounts. M1 includes only the most liquid financial instruments, and M3 relatively illiquid instruments. The precise definition of M1, M2, etc. may be different in different countries. Another measure of money, M0,

1824-403: Is distinguished by some texts, particularly older ones, other texts subsume this under other functions. A "standard of deferred payment" is an accepted way to settle a debt —a unit in which debts are denominated, and the status of money as legal tender , in those jurisdictions which have this concept, states that it may function for the discharge of debts. When debts are denominated in money,

1900-424: Is no evidence of a society or economy that relied primarily on barter. Instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy and debt . When barter did in fact occur, it was usually between either complete strangers or potential enemies. Many cultures around the world eventually developed the use of commodity money . The Mesopotamian shekel was a unit of weight, and relied on

1976-431: Is similar to barter , but is distinguishable from it in having a single recognized unit of exchange. Radford (1945) described the establishment of commodity money in P.O.W camps . People left their surplus clothing, toilet requisites and food there until they were sold at a fixed price in cigarettes. Only sales in cigarettes were accepted – there was no barter [...] Of food, the shop carried small stocks for convenience;

2052-484: Is the cash created by a Central Bank by minting coins and printing banknotes. Bank money , or broad money (M1/M2) is the money created by private banks through the recording of loans as deposits of borrowing clients, with partial support indicated by the cash ratio . Currently, bank money is created as electronic money. Bank money, whose value exists on the books of financial institutions and can be converted into physical notes or used for cashless payment, forms by far

2128-404: Is to be distinguished from representative money , which is a certificate or token which can be exchanged for the underlying commodity, but only by a formal process. A key feature of commodity money is that the value is directly perceived by its users, who recognize the utility or beauty of the tokens as goods in themselves. Since payment by commodity generally provides a useful good, commodity money

2204-584: The Hudson's Bay Company and other fur trading companies controlled most of the country, fur traders quickly realized that gold and silver were of no interest to the First Nations . They wanted goods such as metal knives and axes. Rather than use a barter system , the fur traders established the made beaver (representing a single beaver pelt) as the standard currency, and created a price list for goods: Other animal furs were convertible into beaver pelts at

2280-521: The New World and brought back gold and silver to Spain, or when gold was discovered in California in 1848 . This caused inflation, as the value of gold went down. However, if the rate of gold mining could not keep up with the growth of the economy, gold became relatively more valuable, and prices (denominated in gold) would drop, causing deflation. Deflation was the more typical situation for over

2356-414: The United States greenback , to pay for military expenditures. They could also set the terms at which they would redeem notes for specie, by limiting the amount of purchase, or the minimum amount that could be redeemed. By 1900, most of the industrializing nations were on some form of a gold standard, with paper notes and silver coins constituting the circulating medium. Private banks and governments across

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2432-451: The instability in the ratio between the two grew over the 19th century, with the increase both in the supply of these metals, particularly silver, and of trade. This is called bimetallism and the attempt to create a bimetallic standard where both gold and silver backed currency remained in circulation occupied the efforts of inflationists. Governments at this point could use currency as an instrument of policy, printing paper currency such as

2508-404: The market price of the metal content as a commodity , rather than their legal tender face value (which is usually only a small fraction of their bullion value). Fiat money, if physically represented in the form of currency (paper or coins), can be accidentally damaged or destroyed. However, fiat money has an advantage over representative or commodity money, in that the same laws that created

2584-416: The money supply of an economy. In other words, the money supply is the number of financial instruments within a specific economy available for purchasing goods or services. Since the money supply consists of various financial instruments (usually currency, demand deposits, and various other types of deposits), the amount of money in an economy is measured by adding together these financial instruments creating

2660-465: The 11th century was the impetus for the massive production of paper money in premodern China. At around the same time in the medieval Islamic world , a vigorous monetary economy was created during the 7th–12th centuries on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high-value currency (the dinar ). Innovations introduced by economists, traders and merchants of the Muslim world include

2736-576: The 7th century. However, they did not displace commodity money and were used alongside coins. In the 13th century, paper money became known in Europe through the accounts of travellers, such as Marco Polo and William of Rubruck . Marco Polo's account of paper money during the Yuan dynasty is the subject of a chapter of his book, The Travels of Marco Polo , titled " How the Great Kaan Causeth

2812-565: The Bark of Trees, Made Into Something Like Paper, to Pass for Money All Over his Country ." Banknotes were first issued in Europe by Stockholms Banco in 1661 and were again also used alongside coins. The gold standard , a monetary system where the medium of exchange are paper notes that are convertible into pre-set, fixed quantities of gold, replaced the use of gold coins as currency in the 17th–19th centuries in Europe. These gold standard notes were made legal tender , and redemption into gold coins

2888-626: The Mechanism of Exchange (1875) , William Stanley Jevons famously analyzed money in terms of four functions: a medium of exchange , a common measure of value (or unit of account ), a standard of value (or standard of deferred payment ), and a store of value . By 1919, Jevons's four functions of money were summarized in the couplet : This couplet would later become widely popular in macroeconomics textbooks. Most modern textbooks now list only three functions, that of medium of exchange , unit of account , and store of value , not considering

2964-498: The U.S. officially left the gold standard ), one U.S. dollar was technically worth exactly 1/35 of a troy ounce (889 mg) of gold. However, actual trade in gold bullion as a precious metal within the United States was banned after 1933, with the explicit purpose of preventing the "hoarding" of private gold during an economic depression period in which maximal circulation of money was desired by government policy. This

3040-461: The bank or financial institution any prior notice. Banks have the legal obligation to return funds held in demand deposits immediately upon demand (or 'at call'). Demand deposit withdrawals can be performed in person, via checks or bank drafts, using automatic teller machines (ATMs), or through online banking . Commercial bank money is created by commercial banks whose reserves (held as cash and other highly liquid assets) typically constitute only

3116-471: The books of financial institutions and can be converted into physical notes or used for cashless payment, forms by far the largest part of broad money in developed countries. The word money derives from the Latin word moneta with the meaning "coin" via French monnaie . The Latin word is believed to originate from a temple of Juno , on Capitoline , one of Rome's seven hills. In the ancient world, Juno

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3192-431: The business policies of commercial banks and the preferences of households - factors which the central bank can influence, but not control completely. Contemporary central banks generally do not control the creation of money, nor do they try to, though their interest rate-setting monetary policies naturally affect the amount of loans and deposits that commercial banks create. The development of computer technology in

3268-478: The capital was provided by a loan from the bulk store of Red Cross cigarettes and repaid by a small commission taken on the first transactions. Thus the cigarette attained its fullest currency status, and the market was almost completely unified. Radford documented the way that this 'cigarette currency' was subject to Gresham's law , inflation , and especially deflation . In another example, in US prisons after smoking

3344-460: The case with pure metals or commodities which had not been monetized by any government. As an example, gold and silver coins from other non-U.S. countries are specifically exempted in U.S. law from being legal tender for the payment of debts in the United States, so that a seller who refuses to accept them cannot be sued by the payer who offers them to settle a debt. However, nothing prevents such arrangements from being made if both parties agree on

3420-420: The claim will not be fulfilled if the financial institution becomes insolvent. The money multiplier theory presents the process of creating commercial bank money as a multiple (greater than 1) of the amount of base money created by the country's central bank , the multiple itself being a function of the legal regulation of banks imposed by financial regulators (e.g., potential reserve requirements ) beside

3496-558: The coin. The rationale for this is that emphasis is laid on their direct link to the prevailing value of their fine gold content. American Eagles are imprinted with their gold content and legal tender face value . In 1875, the British economist William Stanley Jevons described the money used at the time as " representative money ". Representative money is money that consists of token coins , paper money or other physical tokens such as certificates, that can be reliably exchanged for

3572-414: The common currency within an economy. Money is the most liquid asset because it is universally recognized and accepted as a common currency. In this way, money gives consumers the freedom to trade goods and services easily without having to barter. Liquid financial instruments are easily tradable and have low transaction costs . There should be no (or minimal) spread between the prices to buy and sell

3648-644: The demand for paper notes to fall to zero. The printing of paper money was also associated with wars, and financing of wars, and therefore regarded as part of maintaining a standing army . For these reasons, paper currency was held in suspicion and hostility in Europe and America. It was also addictive since the speculative profits of trade and capital creation were quite large. Major nations established mints to print money and mint coins, and branches of their treasury to collect taxes and hold gold and silver stock. At this time both silver and gold were considered legal tender , and accepted by governments for taxes. However,

3724-449: The dollar to gold. After this many countries de-pegged their currencies from the U.S. dollar, and most of the world's currencies became unbacked by anything except the governments' fiat of legal tender and the ability to convert the money into goods via payment. According to proponents of modern money theory , fiat money is also backed by taxes. By imposing taxes, states create demand for the currency they issue. Heterodox In Money and

3800-582: The earliest uses of credit , cheques , savings accounts , transactional accounts , loaning, trusts , exchange rates , the transfer of credit and debt , and banking institutions for loans and deposits . In Europe, paper money was first introduced in Sweden in 1661. Sweden was rich in copper, thus, because of copper's low value, extraordinarily big coins (often weighing several kilograms) had to be made. The advantages of paper currency were numerous: it reduced transport of gold and silver, and thus lowered

3876-420: The early 12th century the government finally took over these shops to produce state-issued currency. Yet the banknotes issued were still regionally valid and temporary; it was not until the mid 13th century that a standard and uniform government issue of paper money was made into an acceptable nationwide currency. The already widespread methods of woodblock printing and then Pi Sheng 's movable type printing by

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3952-506: The early 2000s. Early examples include Ecash , bit gold , RPOW , and b-money . Not much innovation occurred until the conception of Bitcoin in 2008, which introduced the concept of a decentralised currency that requires no trusted third party . When gold and silver were used as money, the money supply could grow only if the supply of these metals was increased by mining. This rate of increase would accelerate during periods of gold rushes and discoveries, such as when Columbus traveled to

4028-401: The face value of specie and base-metal coins is set by government fiat, and it is only this value which must be legally accepted as payment for debt, in the jurisdiction of the government which declares the coin to be legal tender. The value of the precious metal in the coin may give it another value, but this varies over time. The value of the metal is subject to bilateral agreement, just as is

4104-712: The face value of the coin. In India, for example, fiat Rupees disappeared from the market after 2007 when their content of stainless steel became larger than the fiat or face value of the coins. In the US, the metal in pennies (97.5% zinc since 1982, 95% copper in 1982 and before) and nickels (75% copper, 25% nickel) has a value close to, and sometimes exceeding, the fiat face value of the coin. Commodities often come into being in situations where other forms of money are not available or not trusted, and these are social norms. Various commodities were used in pre-Revolutionary America including wampum (shell beads), maize (corn), iron nails, beaver pelts , and tobacco . In Canada, where

4180-431: The form of strung beads also dates back to this period, and had the basic attributes needed of commodity money. To organize production and to distribute goods and services among their populations, before market economies existed, people relied on tradition, top-down command, or community cooperation. Relations of reciprocity , and/or redistribution, substituted for market exchange. The city-states of Sumer developed

4256-549: The government declares the fiat currency (typically notes and coins from a central bank, such as the Federal Reserve System in the U.S.) to be legal tender , making it unlawful not to accept the fiat currency as a means of repayment for all debts, public and private. Some bullion coins such as the Australian Gold Nugget and American Eagle are legal tender, however, they trade based on

4332-550: The immediate aftermath of World War II . They have continued to be used as currency in war-torn locations experiencing inadequate supply of common goods and monetary collapse, such as during the Siege of Sarajevo in 1993 or in Russian-occupied Kherson in 2022. Although grains such as barley have been used historically in relations of trade and barter ( Mesopotamia circa 3000 BC), they can be inconvenient as

4408-633: The instrument being used as money. Many items have been used as commodity money such as naturally scarce precious metals , conch shells , barley , beads, etc., as well as many other things that are thought of as having value . Commodity money value comes from the commodity out of which it is made. The commodity itself constitutes the money, and the money is the commodity. Examples of commodities that have been used as mediums of exchange include gold, silver, copper, rice, Wampum , salt, peppercorns, large stones, decorated belts, shells, alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, candy, etc. These items were sometimes used in

4484-468: The largest part of broad money in developed countries. In most countries, the majority of money is mostly created as M1/M2 by commercial banks making loans. Contrary to some popular misconceptions, banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them, and do not depend on central bank money (M0) to create new loans and deposits. "Market liquidity" describes how easily an item can be traded for another item, or into

4560-474: The last countries to break away from the gold standard was the United States in 1971. No country anywhere in the world today has an enforceable gold standard or silver standard currency system. Commercial bank money or demand deposits are claims against financial institutions that can be used for the purchase of goods and services. A demand deposit account is an account from which funds can be withdrawn at any time by check or cash withdrawal without giving

4636-509: The market value of goods, services, and other transactions. Also known as a "measure" or "standard" of relative worth and deferred payment, a unit of account is a necessary prerequisite for the formulation of commercial agreements that involve debt. Money acts as a standard measure and a common denomination of trade. It is thus a basis for quoting and bargaining of prices. It is necessary for developing efficient accounting systems like double-entry bookkeeping . While standard of deferred payment

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4712-651: The mass of something like 160 grains of barley . The first usage of the term came from Mesopotamia circa 3000 BC. Societies in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia used shell money —often, the shells of the cowry ( Cypraea moneta L. or C. annulus L. ). According to Herodotus , the Lydians were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coins . It is thought by modern scholars that these first stamped coins were minted around 650 to 600 BC. The system of commodity money eventually evolved into

4788-537: The military, and backing of state activities. Silver coins were used for midsized transactions, and as a unit of account for taxes, dues, contracts, and fealty, while copper coins represented the coinage of common transaction. This system had been used in ancient India since the time of the Mahajanapadas . In Europe, this system worked through the medieval period because there was virtually no new gold, silver, or copper introduced through mining or conquest. Thus

4864-406: The money can also define rules for its replacement in case of damage or destruction. For example, the U.S. government will replace mutilated Federal Reserve Notes (U.S. fiat money) if at least half of the physical note can be reconstructed, or if it can be otherwise proven to have been destroyed. By contrast, commodity money that has been lost or destroyed cannot be recovered. These factors led to

4940-448: The non-existence of the coincidence of wants. Having a medium of exchange can alleviate this issue because the former can have the freedom to spend time on other items, instead of being burdened to only serve the needs of the latter. Meanwhile, the latter can use the medium of exchange to seek for a party that can provide them with the item they want. A unit of account (in economics) is a standard numerical monetary unit of measurement of

5016-413: The overall ratios of the three coinages remained roughly equivalent. In premodern China , the need for credit and for circulating a medium that was less of a burden than exchanging thousands of copper coins led to the introduction of paper money . This economic phenomenon was a slow and gradual process that took place from the late Tang dynasty (618–907) into the Song dynasty (960–1279). It began as

5092-416: The real value of debts may change due to inflation and deflation , and for sovereign and international debts via debasement and devaluation . To act as a store of value , money must be able to be reliably saved, stored, and retrieved—and be predictably usable as a medium of exchange when it is retrieved. The value of the money must also remain stable over time. Some have argued that inflation, by reducing

5168-439: The risks; it made loaning gold or silver at interest easier since the specie (gold or silver) never left the possession of the lender until someone else redeemed the note; and it allowed for a division of currency into credit and specie backed forms. It enabled the sale of stock in joint stock companies , and the redemption of those shares in the paper. However, these advantages are held within their disadvantages. First, since

5244-437: The second part of the twentieth century allowed money to be represented digitally. By 1990, in the United States all money transferred between its central bank and commercial banks was in electronic form. By the 2000s most money existed as digital currency in bank databases. In 2012, by number of transaction, 20 to 58 percent of transactions were electronic (dependent on country). Anonymous digital currencies were developed in

5320-423: The shift of the store of value being the metal itself: at first silver, then both silver and gold, and at one point there was bronze as well. Now we have copper coins and other non-precious metals as coins. Metals were mined, weighed, and stamped into coins. This was to assure the individual taking the coin that he was getting a certain known weight of precious metal. Coins could be counterfeited, but they also created

5396-425: The value of money, diminishes the ability of the money to function as a store of value. The functions of money are that it is a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. To fulfill these various functions, money must be: In economics, money is any financial instrument that can fulfill the functions of money (detailed above). These financial instruments together are collectively referred to as

5472-399: The world followed Gresham's law : keeping gold and silver paid but paying out in notes. This did not happen all around the world at the same time, but occurred sporadically, generally in times of war or financial crisis, beginning in the early part of the 20th century and continuing across the world until the late 20th century, when the regime of floating fiat currencies came into force. One of

5548-443: Was a fairly typical transition from commodity to representative to fiat money, with people trading in other goods being forced to trade in gold, then to receive paper money that purported to be as good as gold, and finally a fiat currency backed by government authority and social perceptions of value. Cigarettes and gasoline were used as a form of commodity money in some parts of Europe, including Germany, France and Belgium, in

5624-458: Was banned circa 2003, commodity money has switched in many places to containers of mackerel fish fillets, which have a fairly standard cost and are easy to store. These may be exchanged for many services in prisons where currency is prohibited. In metallic currencies, a government mint will coin money by placing a mark on metal tokens, typically gold or silver , which serves as a guarantee of their weight and purity. In issuing this coinage at

5700-482: Was discouraged. By the beginning of the 20th century, almost all countries had adopted the gold standard, backing their legal tender notes with fixed amounts of gold. After World War II and the Bretton Woods Conference , most countries adopted fiat currencies that were fixed to the U.S. dollar . The U.S. dollar was in turn fixed to gold. In 1971 the U.S. government suspended the convertibility of

5776-702: Was often associated with money. The temple of Juno Moneta at Rome was the place where the mint of Ancient Rome was located. The name "Juno" may have derived from the Etruscan goddess Uni and "Moneta" either from the Latin word "monere" (remind, warn, or instruct) or the Greek word "moneres" (alone, unique). In the Western world a prevalent term for coin-money has been specie , stemming from Latin in specie , meaning "in kind". The use of barter -like methods may date back to at least 100,000 years ago, though there

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