


government, and are secured by government securities and eligible commercial paper. Most of the currency circulating in the United States consists of Federal Reserve notes, which are issued in denominations ranging from $1 to $100 by the Federal Reserve System, are guaranteed by the U.S. Under the Legal Tender Act of 1933, all American coin and paper money in circulation is legal tender, i.e., under the law it must be accepted at face value by creditors in payment of any debt, public or private. currency, paper or coin, has been essentially fiat money. Subsequently, a number of measures de-emphasized the dollar's dependence on gold, and since the early 1970s, practically all U.S. The 1934 act stipulated that gold could not be used as a medium of domestic exchange.

While gold was still thought to be important for maintenance of confidence in the dollar, its connection with the actual use of money was at best vague. Under this system, the dollar was legally defined as having a certain, fixed value in gold. The passage of the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, which put the country on a modified gold standard, presaged the end of the gold-based monetary system in domestic exchange.

NEAR MONIES ARE DEFINED AS FOR FREE
A full gold standard was in effect from 1900 to 1933, providing for free coinage of gold and full convertibility of currency into gold coin the volume of money in circulation was closely related to the gold supply. The monetary system of the United States was based on bimetallism during most of the 19th cent. Since the mid-20th cent., a group known as the monetarists has given increasing attention to the role of money in determining national income and economic fluctuations. While the advocates of mercantilism tended to identify money with wealth, the classical economists, e.g., John Stuart Mill, usually considered money as a veil obscuring real economic phenomena. The importance of money has been variously interpreted. the use of debit cards, credit cards, and smartphone apps to make electronic payments has increasingly supplanted currency in both retail and personal transactions. Plastic bills are more resistant to counterfeiting than paper, and a number of countries now issue plastic currency. The world's first durable plastic currency was introduced by Australia in a special issue in 1988 and in a regular issue in 1992. Paper currency first appeared about 300 years ago it was usually backed by some “standard” commodity of intrinsic value into which it could be freely converted on demand, but even during the early development of currency, issuance of inconvertible paper money, also called fiat money, was not infrequent (see, for example, Law, John). The relation between the face value of an object used as money and its commodity value has actually become increasingly remote (see coin). Whether an article is to be regarded as money does not, however, depend on its value as a commodity, except where intrinsic worth is necessary to make it generally acceptable in exchange. The growth of monetary institutions has largely paralleled that of trade and industry today almost all economic activity is concerned with the making and spending of money incomes.įrom the earliest times precious metals have had wide monetary use, owing to convenience of handling, durability, divisibility, and the high intrinsic value commonly attached to them. Exchange involving the use of money is a great improvement over barter, since it permits elaborate specialization and provides generalized purchasing power that the participants in the exchange may use in the future. Many ancient communities, for instance, took cattle as their standard of value but used more manageable objects as means of payment. Frequently the standard of value also serves as a medium of exchange, but that is not always the case. Money, term that refers to two concepts: the abstract unit of account in terms of which the value of goods, services, and obligations can be compared and anything that is widely established as a means of payment.
