A concept of value called money makes it easier to trade items. With the introduction of money, the challenges of bartering—where each party must have something another wants or needs—are resolved. Historically, agricultural products like grain or animals were the first kinds of money. The majority of monetary systems in use today are built on standardised currencies that central banks manage. The distinctive characteristics of money are also present in several digitised cryptocurrencies.
Did you know? Approximate dating estimates the production of the earliest coins around 2,500 years old.
What Is Money?
Money could be considered as a value system which facilitates the exchange of goods within an economy. The use of money allows the buyer and seller to pay less in transaction costs, compared to barter trading. As economies turned critical, money got standardized into currencies. It decreased transaction cost through making it easier to evaluate and compare value.
How does Money Work?
Money is a liquid asset that is used to promote value-based exchanges. It serves as a channel of communication between people and things, and it can assess the worth of other items and serves as both a valuation store and an accounting unit.
Traditional economies depended on bartering before money was invented, in which people exchanged the products they already owned for the things they needed. This brought up the issue of the double synchronicity of needs: a trade could only happen if both parties were in possession of an item that the other party required. This issue is resolved by money, which serves as an intermediate good.
There are two sorts of money: fiat money, which has no inherent worth but is recognised as a nation's legal tender by the authorities, and commodities money, which is an object used as money but also possesses value through its usage in other contexts
Money was standardised into currencies as economies grew increasingly complicated. As a result, comparing and assessing value was simpler, which decreased transaction costs.
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Functions of Money
Primary Function
1. A Medium of Exchange:
The return to barter is the only replacement for utilising money. But today, the barter system is completely impractical as a means of exchange.
For instance, if the baker who provided the vegetable vendor with bread was required to accept payment in beans or onions, he might not prefer these vegetables or may already have plenty of them on hand.
As a result, the baker will have to resell the goods, which would be exceedingly cumbersome and take a lot of time. It is feasible to save a considerable amount of time by substituting the use of money for these problematic transactions. If the baker receives payment in cash, they are free to use the money any way they see fit. The disadvantages of bartering are solved by using money as an instrument of trade.
The money thus offers the most effective way to fulfill desires. Every individual has a unique set of priorities, and with money, she may prioritise their goals according to importance and capability and then take the appropriate action.
This kind of structure also facilitates the expansion of specialisation. Consider a worker at a shoe factory who only does one job. He hasn't genuinely created anything on his own. So, what could he trade if there was a barter system in place? The issue is resolved through the use of money. He can get payment in monetary terms and is free to spend that money any way he pleases.
2. A Measure of Value:
Measuring the worth of items in a barter system is exceedingly challenging. Any good or service has a range of exchange prices, which is one drawback of the bartering system.
Everything is measured in monetary terms. It enables everything to be valued, that is, evaluated in a standard monetary term by serving as the common denominator. People can compare prices to determine the relative worth of various commodities and services.
3. The Basis of Credit:
Loans are facilitated by money. When it is the most needed, borrowers can utilise their money to buy the products and services they want. For instance, a newlywed couple would require a sizable sum of money to equip their home all at once. They don't have to wait to be able to accumulate enough cash to purchase expensive products like automobiles, refrigerators, televisions, etc.
4. A Unit of Account:
Money has the quality of being utilised as an accounting unit. The conclusion is that financial transactions and the worth of the products and services produced in a nation over time are both measured and recorded in terms of money. The term "gross national product" refers to the monetary worth of the products and services generated in an economy during a certain accounting year.
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Secondary Function
1. A Standard of Postponed Payment
This has elaborated upon the first function. In this case, money is once more employed as a means of transaction, but the payment is stretched out across time. As a result, when things are purchased on hire-purchase, the buyer receives them after making a deposit and is responsible for the remaining balance over a period of time. In other words, using money enables deferring expenditure from the present to a later event.
In a contemporary economy, credit is used in the majority of transactions (both buying and selling). For instance, the majority of company transactions allow for payment of items provided today but to be paid for later, and employees typically have to wait a week or a month to get paid. As a result, money application enables society's participants to postpone their current spending for a later time. As a result, we can plainly see that a monetary system is superior to a barter system.
2. A Store of Value
Using commodities as currency has a number of drawbacks, including the fact that over time, they degrade and lose value. As a result, they are completely inadequate as a method of capital storage. Such issues may be solved, and people are capable of safeguarding the future by using currency. People can store their excess income with the use of modern financial instruments like coins, notes, and bank deposits.
As a result, money serves as storage for purchasing power, and it can be kept for a while and utilised to fund upcoming payments. Additionally, those who save money are certain that their savings will be valuable when they choose to use them in the future. This can only be true, though, if there isn't significant inflation or deflation in the nation.
In other terms, it should be clear that for money to function well as a store of wealth, its own worth must be secure. For instance, if most individuals believe that their assets will become obsolete very soon, they will immediately consume them and make no further investments. In India, the currency's value has been declining for a while. However, for day-to-day needs, money has enough value stability in the near term to function admirably as a reserve of value.
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Conclusion:
In society, individuals frequently utilise the money to buy or sell products and services. Without money, individuals would have to trade with one another, which requires that every person find other persons with whom they share double synchronicity of needs. Money performs several tasks, including serving as a standard of deferred payment, a monetary unit of account, a reserve of value, and a means of trade.
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