Types of Money

I see the types of money section has been removed. I'm wondering if we could discuss this and consider putting it back. The stated reason is that it is redundant. I don't see this at all.
alluding to the concept of "types of money" via links while discussing the history of money is *not* the same as discussing the conceptual framework behind the idea that money has types. It fails to focus on the conceptual dynamics and leaves the false impression that things like "fiat money" are nothing more than different ways to back physical currency. In today's world where the vast majority of the money supply exists solely in electronic or contractual form, it is important for people to understand the distinction between money and currency.
the dynamics implied by the "types of money" are important to understanding much of modern monetary policy or the relationship between currency fluctuations and political risk, i.e. the relationship between contracts, legal systems, risk, future vs. current payment etc.
the idea that money has different "types" is important to understanding why there is such a thing as M1, M2, M3 or why countries may differ in the way they track money supply.
without an explicit discussion of the types of money we are likely to eventually get editors trying to turn this article into a diatrabe for one standard or another (there were several paragraphs that appeared to be thinly veiled polemics for the gold standard in the article before we began working on this article last week).
similarly we are likely to get a reappearance of the section that tried to insist that credit was something different from money rather than a particular type of money.
the section also discussed strengths and limitation of the different types of money and their effects on economic growth. I don't see where that appears anywhere in the remainder of the article.
I do agree that there is some repetition ... rather than remove the types of money section, I would recommend that we deal with some of the redundancy by moving some of the pro/con stuff from the history of money section to the types of money section. There will, however, be a limit to the amount we can move because some of the concepts that rightly belong in a discussion of types of money are needed to understand the history.
Another possibility is to move the types of money section before the history of money section. This would reduce the need to explain types of money in the history section. I didn't do that earlier because most people have a concrete notion of money (money = currency) and so might find the "types of money" discussion a bit dry. I felt putting the history of money section first helps people make the transition from a concrete to an abstract understanding of money. Readers are more prepared for the more theoretical discussion after they have read the history section.
Egfrank 04:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I take your point but, to the extent that it wasn't redundant, I felt that the section gave a rather uncritical and unencyclopedic presentation of the views of Ludwig von Mises, who is a pretty marginal figure in monetary theory these days. As in so much of this article, what we need is citation to a proper source giving an accessible presentation of the mainstream view. It's not really my field, but I'll see what I can dig up. JQ 12:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the section is incomplete and unbalanced. For example, whereas 3 whole sub-sections are devoted to each of the Mises categories, there is almost no discussion of the categorization system behind M0-3 (important for a great deal of econometric research). Also the introductory paragraph to the section only mentions Mises and says nothing about modern theory. Anything you can do to address this would be great!
I think a balanced presentation should include all the mainstream categorization systems we can find, with an explanation of their theoretical or pragmatic significance. M0-3 seems to use liquidity as the categorization principle with currency (M0) being the most liquid and large time deposits (M3) being the least. By contrast the commodity-credit-fiat distinction focuses on the source of trust. The value of each categorization system depends on the kind of economic behavior we need to induce or explain.
Minor though Mises might be, the system of categorization that he bases his work upon appears to be widely taught based on a quick survey of on-line college course lecture notes. (But note the variation in the third category which Mises calls credit money: Deposit money (UPenn), fiduciary money(Drexel), Electronic money(iowa). )
UPenn: http://www.econ.upenn.edu/econ2/ch13_econ2.pdf
Drexel: http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/Prin/txt/money/types.html
Iowa state: http://www.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ353/tesfatsion/mish3a.htm#Meaning
One possible reason why this categorization does not get heavy play in modern monetary theory is that such theory was developed primarily to explain the behavior of developed economies. Liquidity based categorization is more useful and interesting because the different types co-exist within a developed economy. This makes them more amenable to econometric modeling.
On the other hand, there are contexts where trust based categorizations such as commodity-fiat-credit are quite helpful in framing problems. I recall some work I did several years ago on African warehouse receipts programs and their role in developing the supply of capital. Fiat currencies rely heavily on the economics of trust. When governments are perceived by the West as having little stability and transparency, it is difficult to use free market forces to attract capital or stabilize the currency. One solution to this is to use modern financial markets and hedging strategies to create stable money-like instruments (warehouse receipts) backed by tradable commodities. The idea is that the warehouse receipts will be attractive to both local and western investors because they are backed by the world financial markets and not by the government.
Can you clarify what you meant by uncritical rehashing of Mises? Beyond the wording for the definitions of each type of money and the comment that he based his theory around this particular categorization system, I'm not sure what comes from Mises in this section. Most of the material is a rearrangement from the pre-improvement drive version of the Wiki article and came from several editors who didn't cite their sources. The explanation of credit risk is standard finance and I believe postdates the cited work by Mises. The discussion of the role of supply and demand in commodity based currencies was part of the original Wiki article and goes back to Adam Smith - the Wealth of Nations. (see Book I, chapters III-V). As for the categorization system, Adam Smith does not use the terms commodity and fiat currency but the concept is present in books III when he theorizes that weighing coins is burdensome so people began to trust coins based on their imprint and not their metallic weight.
I'm going to put the section back with some reworking to make it clearer that there are alternate categorization schemes, but it will be just a start. At least that way we will have a text over which we can discuss specific problems. Egfrank 03:35, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I guess I was put off at the start by the unencyclopedic tone of "a point driven home in his (von Mises) book The Theory of Money and Credit", and some unsourced claims in the discussion that followed.
More to the point though, as your discussion indicates, the commodity-fiat-credit categorization recapitulates the historical development we already have in the article. If we want to use any of this, including history of thought on the topic, it fits naturally in the history section. For a modern approach, we really want to focus on liquidity, as you say. Also, we need a main article on Monetary economics, which currently just redirects here. Money supply needs lots of work too, unfortunately.JQ 08:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if we might be having a debate here between a macro-economic perspective and a finance perspective? If we want to be throughly modern, I think we also need to consider trust, risk, and institutional stability as well as liquidity. Even cash holdings of a currency without trust are not going to be very liquid.
The commodity/fiat/credit distinction may no longer seem relevant when most modern currencies are fiat based or pegged in some form to one that is, but the issues it raises haven't gone away. It is impossible to model a fiat currency or foreign investment flows without considering things like political risk or the stability of the banking system. Also the widespread use of derivatives effectively recommoditizes some forms of money - for example, warehouse receipts programs turn commodity deposits into bank deposits against which farmers can withdraw local currency on demand. Egfrank 05:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Good points. My feeling is that the best strategy may be to work on a Monetary economics article, and an improved article on Money supply, extracts of which could then be included in Money. The JEL classification codes list the following headings that could be used as a starting point (not all would be relevant at this stage) JEL: E4 - Money and Interest Rates
JEL: E40 - General
JEL: E41 - Demand for Money
JEL: E42 - Monetary Systems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
JEL: E43 - Determination of Interest Rates; Term Structure of Interest Rates
JEL: E44 - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
JEL: E47 - Forecasting and Simulation
JEL: E49 - Other
JEL: E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
JEL: E50 - General
JEL: E51 - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
JEL: E52 - Monetary Policy (Targets, Instruments, and Effects)
JEL: E58 - Central Banks and Their Policies
JEL: E59 - Other
How does that sound?JQ 07:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I think working on the Money Supply and Monetary Economics articles makes a lot of sense. It will easier to summarize in the money article after writing up the details. BTW were you aware that there is a Monetarism article? Monetary Economics really deserves its own article, but as a temporary move, I've changed its redirect to monetarism.
I'm fine with the JEL classification as headings, but I wonder if we might be better off starting work on a history/mini-lit-review section and then branching out from there? Neither of us are specialists in monetary economics it would give us both an opportunity to review what's out there. Based on my own brief reading so far, one of the challenges we face is that the field itself seems to be in a bit of a transition. (Ah - and people think contributing to Wikipedia is easy :-)) Cheers, Egfrank 05:12, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Indeed it's a challenge. I'll put out some calls for help when I get a moment.JQ 08:36, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

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Store of value

To act as a store of value, a commodity, a form of money, or financial capital must be able to be reliably saved, stored, and retrieved — and be predictably useful when it is so retrieved. Fiat currency like paper or electronic currency no longer backed by gold in most countries is not considered by some economists to be a store of value.

Unit of account

A unit of account is a standard numerical unit of measurement of 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.
Divisible into small units without destroying its value; precious metals can be coined from bars, or melted down into bars again.
Fungible: that is, one unit or piece must be perceived as equivalent to any other, which is why diamonds, works of art or real estate are not suitable as money.
A specific weight, or measure, or size to be verifiably countable. For instance, coins are often made with ridges around the edges, so that any removal of material from the coin (lowering its commodity value) will be easy to detect.

Criticisms of money

It was the ’drastic influence’ that energy quality and availability had on economic development that led M. King Hubbert and Frederick Soddy among others, to criticize standard economics for its lack of a biophysical basis. Echoing the words of Frederick Soddy written almost a half-century earlier in Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (1926), Hubbert stated:
"...when one speaks of the state of growth of GNP, I haven’t the faintest idea what this means when I try to translate it onto coal, oil, iron, and the other physical quantities which are required to run an industry...the quantity GNP is a monetary bookkeeping entity. It obeys the laws of money. It can be expanded or diminished, created or destroyed, but it does not obey the laws of physics."
Thermoeconomics research dealing with biophysical economics questions the ability of money to come to terms with the operation of our current high energy civilization.

Medium of exchange

Money is used as an intermediary for trade, in order to avoid the inefficiencies of a barter system, which are sometimes referred to as the 'double coincidence of wants problem'. Such usage is termed a medium of exchange.

Monetary policy

Monetary policy is the process by which a government, central bank, or monetary authority manages the money supply to achieve specific goals. Usually the goal of monetary policy is to accommodate economic growth in an environment of stable prices. For example, it is clearly stated in the Federal Reserve Act that the Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee should seek “to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”[10]
A failed monetary policy can have significant detrimental effects on an economy and the society that depends on it. These include hyperinflation, stagflation, recession, high unemployment, shortages of imported goods, inability to export goods, and even total monetary collapse and the adoption of a much less efficient barter economy. This happened in Russia, for instance, after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Governments and central banks have taken both regulatory and free market approaches to monetary policy. Some of the tools used to control the money supply include:
changing the rate at which the government loans or borrows money
currency purchases or sales
increasing or lowering government borrowing
increasing or lowering government spending
manipulation of exchange rates
raising or lowering bank reserve requirements
regulation or prohibition of private currencies
taxation or tax breaks on imports or exports of capital into a country
For many years much of monetary policy was influenced by an economic theory known as monetarism. Monetarism is an economic theory which argues that management of the money supply should be the primary means of regulating economic activity. The stability of the demand for money prior to the 1980s was a key finding of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz[11] supported by the work of David Laidler[12], and many others.
The nature of the demand for money changed during the 1980s owing to technical, institutional, and legal factors and the influence of monetarism has since decrease