Method by which value is transferred between parties.
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In economics, a medium of exchange is any item that is widely acceptable in exchange for goods and services.[1] In modern economies, the most commonly used medium of exchange is currency. Most forms of money are categorised as mediums of exchange, including commodity money, representative money, cryptocurrency, and most commonly fiat money. Representative and fiat money most widely exist in digital form as well as physical tokens, for example coins and notes.
The origin of "mediums of exchange" in human societies is assumed by economists, such as William Stanley Jevons, to have arisen in antiquity as awareness grew of the limitations of barter. The form of the "medium of exchange" follows that of a token, which has been further refined as money. A "medium of exchange" is considered one of the functions of money.[2][3][4] The exchange acts as an intermediary instrument as the use can be to acquire any good or service and avoids the limitations of barter; where what one wants has to be matched with what the other has to offer.[5][6] However, there is little evidence of a pre-monetary society in which barter is the primary mode of exchange;[7]
instead, such societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy and debt.[8][9][10]
^Black, John, 1969 (2017). A dictionary of economics. Hashimzade, Nigar,, Myles, Gareth D. (5 ed.). [Oxford]. ISBN 978-0-19-181994-0. OCLC 970401192.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^Cite error: The named reference mankiw was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Cite error: The named reference krugman was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Cite error: The named reference abelbernanke was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^William Stanley Jevons, 1875. 'Money and the mechanism of exchange' Chapter 1 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-money-and-the-mechanism-of-exchange
^"Medium of Exchange Definition".
^Humphrey, Caroline. 1985. "Barter and Economic Disintegration". Man, New Series 20 (1): 48–72.
^Mauss, Marcel. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. pp. 36–37.
^"What is Debt? – An Interview with Economic Anthropologist David Graeber". Naked Capitalism. 2011-08-26.
^David Graeber: Debt: The First 5000 Years, Melville 2011. Cf. review
and 28 Related for: Medium of exchange information
a mediumofexchange is any item that is widely acceptable in exchange for goods and services. In modern economies, the most commonly used mediumof exchange...
repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: mediumofexchange, a...
is often defined in terms of the three functions or services: as a mediumofexchange, as a store of value and as a unit of account. Money's most important...
because the individuals who use it as a unit of account – or, in the case of currency, a mediumofexchange – agree on its value. They trust that it will...
tender. Bitcoin is currently used more as a store of value and less as a mediumofexchange or unit of account. It is mostly seen as an investment and has...
authorities. Originally designed as a mediumofexchange, Bitcoin is now primarily regarded as a store of value. The history of bitcoin started with its invention...
A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a mediumofexchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition...
Cryptocurrency Cryptography Digital gold currency List of bitcoin companies Foreign exchange market Mediumofexchange "Substantiation – Money laundering in digital...
study of money, considered it to be one of four fundamental functions of money, the other three being mediumofexchange, store of value, and unit of account...
barter, other kinds of in-kind transactions also suffer from the coincidence of wants problem in the absence of a mediumofexchange. Romance, for example...
things were traded in ancient markets that could be described as a mediumofexchange. These included livestock and grain – things directly useful in themselves...
money relies on intrinsically valuable commodities that act as a mediumofexchange. Fiat money, on the other hand, gets its value from a government order...
from the government or regulatory authority. Cash is the preferred mediumofexchange in illegal transactions, since cash transactions are less easily traced...
crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a mediumofexchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority...
The Columbian exchange, also known as the Columbian interchange, was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, precious metals, commodities, culture...
reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, mediumofexchange or as a unit of account. The U.S. dollar began to displace the pound sterling...
different from the one of the state that administers them or has jurisdiction over them. A currency is a kind of money and mediumofexchange. Currency includes...
materials, animals and even people available in the locality to create a mediumofexchange. This started to change from the 17th century onwards, as European...
used cryptocurrencies as mediumofexchange and was inspired by a hackathon project called DarkMarket. Amir Taaki and a group of programmers from Bitcoin...
often served as a mediumofexchange. Many of the resisters were war veterans who believed that they were fighting for the principles of the American Revolution...
complementary currency is a currency or mediumofexchange that is not necessarily a national currency, but that is thought of as supplementing or complementing...
increasingly popular as a mediumofexchange due to its versatility in prisons as food and its relative abundance. In some prisons, packets of mackerel fish or...
accepted as a mediumofexchange in the country of issuance", also called "real currency" by FinCEN, defined virtual currency as "a mediumofexchange that operates...
the standard of value and with silver serving as mediumofexchange for local, domestic and even regional trade. Gold functioned as a medium for international...
'a mediumofexchange.' See ante, at 2–3. But even this definition has its ambiguities. A railroad employee cannot use her paycheck as a 'mediumof exchange...
was consumed as bumbo).[citation needed] Rum has served as a mediumof economic exchange, used to help fund enterprises such as slavery via triangular...