Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Understanding money - its creation, distribution and the value attached to it- is critical to understanding a society. This book introduces the principal theories of money, integrating them with macroeconomics.
The author takes three perspectives: first, a historical perspective, showing how the forms of money evolve in society, from the primitive tools of barter and credit to modern fiat and more recently digital money; second, an engineering perspective, discussing money as a social technology for free exchange; third, a scientific-philosophical perspective, asking what is fundamental in money.
The book addresses five key questions. What is money? How is it generated? How is it distributed? How does money acquire value and how does that value change? How does money impact the economy and society?
Money: What it is, how it's created, who gets it and why it matters will be of interest to students of economics and finance theory as well as being essential reading for anyone who wants a more complete understanding of monetary theory, macroeconomics, money and banking. It will also appeal to all those seeking an understanding of the interplay between money and society.
Synopsis
By enabling the storage and transfer of purchasing power, money facilitates economic transactions and coordinates economic activity. But what is money? How is it generated? Distributed? How does money acquire value and that value change? How does money impact the economy, society?
This book explores money as a system of "tokens" that represent the purchasing power of individual agents. It looks at how money developed from debt/credit relationships, barter and coins into a system of gold-backed currencies and bank credit and on to the present system of fiat money, bank credit, near-money and, more recently, digital currencies. The author successively examines how the money circuit has changed over the last 50 years, a period of stagnant wages, increased household borrowing and growing economic complexity, and argues for a new theory of economies as complex systems, coordinated by a banking and financial system.
Money: What It Is, How It's Created, Who Gets It and Why It Matters will be of interest to students of economics and finance theory and anyone wanting a more complete understanding of monetary theory, economics, money and banking.