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Famous Myths of "Fiat Money"

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  • Goldberg, Dror

Abstract

The paper re-evaluates the conventional wisdom regarding the existence of moneys that supposedly circulated without any legal status or intrinsic value. Economists call these objects "fiat money." I re-examine the most famous examples of such objects from primitive societies, such as the stone money of Yap and seashells, which have been cited by some of the most prominent monetary economists. I find that actually none of these cases is an evidence of "fiat money." A general conclusion is that one needs to seriously study the society in question before making a claim that it has used "fiat money."

Suggested Citation

  • Goldberg, Dror, 2005. "Famous Myths of "Fiat Money"," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(5), pages 957-967, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:mcb:jmoncb:v:37:y:2005:i:5:p:957-67
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    Cited by:

    1. So Kubota, 2021. "Money and cooperation in small communities," Working Papers 2118, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    2. Diarmid Weir, 2013. "Fiat Money, Individual Rationality and Production," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(4), pages 573-590, November.
    3. Alexander W. Salter & William J. Luther, 2014. "Synthesizing State and Spontaneous Order Theories of Money," Advances in Austrian Economics, in: Entangled Political Economy, volume 18, pages 161-178, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    4. Eric Tymoigne, 2017. "On the Centrality of Redemption: Linking the State and Credit Theories of Money through a Financial Approach to Money," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_890, Levy Economics Institute.
    5. Qi Deng, 2019. "Blockchain Economical Models, Delegated Proof of Economic Value and Delegated Adaptive Byzantine Fault Tolerance and their implementation in Artificial Intelligence BlockCloud," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-27, November.
    6. Eric Tymoigne, 2014. "Monetary Mechanics: A Financial View," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_799, Levy Economics Institute.

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