Barter and the Origin of Money and Some Insights from the Ancient Palatial Economies of Mesopotamia and Egypt

Serge Svizzero and Clement Tisdell

No 291788, Economic Theory, Applications and Issues Working Papers from University of Queensland, School of Economics

Abstract: The "Metallist" origin of money, used as a medium of exchange, is based on the presumed low efficiency of barter. However, barter is usually ill-defined and archaeological evidence about it is inconclusive. Moreover, the transaction costs associated with barter seem to have been exaggerated by metallists. Indeed, the introduction of a unit of account reduces the complexity of the relative prices system usually associated with barter. Similarly, in-kind transactions have timing constraints which are often labeled as "the double coincidence of wants"; with a system of debt and credit, delayed exchange, that is lending, is possible. Such adaptability of barter is confirmed by the study of Mesopotamian and ancient Egyptian palatial economies. They provide evidence that non-monetary transactions have persisted during millennia, challenging the metallist vision about the origin of money.

Keywords: Financial Economics; International Relations/Trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29
Date: 2019-07-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe, nep-mon and nep-pay
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Barter and the Origin of Money and Some Insights from the Ancient Palatial Economies of Mesopotamia and Egypt (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uqseet:291788

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.291788

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