Abstract
A commodity is an object that is intrinsically useful as an input to production or consumption. A medium of exchange is an object that is generally accepted as final payment during or after an exchange transaction, even though the agent accepting it (the seller) does not necessarily consume the object or any service flow from it. Money is the collection of objects that are used as media of exchange. Commodity money is a medium of exchange that may become (or be transformed into) a commodity, useful in production or consumption. This is in contrast to fiat money, which is intrinsically useless.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Bordo, M. and Kydland, F. 1996. The gold standard as a commitment mechanism. In Modern Perspectives on the Gold Standard, ed. T. Bayoumi, B. Eichengreen and M. Taylor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kiyotaki, N. and Wright, R. 1989. On money as a medium of exchange. Journal of Political Economy 97, 927–54.
Luschin von Ebengreuth, A. 1926. Allgemeine Münzkunde und Geldgeschichte des Mittelalters und der neueren Zeit. Munich: R. Oldenbourg.
Redish, A. 2000. Bimetallism: An Economic and Historical Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rolnick, A., Velde, F. and Weber, W. 1996. The debasement puzzle: an essay on medieval monetary history. Journal of Economic History 56, 789–808.
Sargent, T. and Smith, B. 1997. Coinage, debasements, and Gresham’s laws. Economic Theory 10, 197–226.
Sargent, T. and Velde, F. 2002. The Big Problem of Small Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sargent, T. and Wallace, N. 1983. A model of commodity money. Journal of Monetary Economics 12, 163–87.
Spufford, P. 1988. Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sussman, N. and Zeira, J. 2003. Commodity money inflation: theory and evidence from France in 1350–1436. Journal of Monetary Economics 50, 1769–93.
Velde, F. and Weber, W. 2000. A model of bimetallism. Journal of Political Economy 108, 1210–34.
Williams, J., ed. 1997. Money: A History. New York: St Martin’s Press.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2010 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Velde, F.R., Weber, W.E. (2010). Commodity Money. In: Durlauf, S.N., Blume, L.E. (eds) Monetary Economics. The New Palgrave Economics Collection. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230280854_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230280854_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-23888-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-28085-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Media & Culture CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)