Money and Inflation : A New Approach to Monetary Analysis for the 21st Century

The book goes beyond the usual understanding of moneyphysically, electronically or virtually expressed in term of monetary units like dollars, pounds, gold coins, or bitcoinsand discusses how money is best conceptualised as the ability of a person/party to obtain goods and services from another person/party. This ability may originate from the access of a person/party to money in usual sense (e.g. dollars, pounds) but also via force, social norms, mutual negotiation, altruism, trust or due to human biological characteristics. As the ability to obtain goods and services from others depends on the context what functions as money in a time and place may not function as money in another time and place as such money has no universal type or representation. The book explains inflation as the increased need to acquire money, that is the need to employ more physical and mental labour to create the ability to obtain a wide range of goods and services. This book provides an explanation of the post covid price hike and the cost of living crisis by taking this new theory into consideration, which will be of interest to academics, researchers, policy makers and students studying finance, monetary economics and inflation. Contents List of Figures 1 Introduction References 2 Existing Literature: A Brief Tour The Commodity Theory of Money The Credit Theory of Money Concluding Remarks on the Literature References 3 What Is Money? Methodological Considerations Finding Money Through Some Hypothetical Transactions Potential Money Concluding Remarks References 4 The Origin of Money as the Ability to Obtain Goods and Services Market-Based Transactions Non-Market-Based Transactions One-Sided Transactions References 5 Money as the Ability Vis-à-Vis Other Concepts Commodity Money Credit Money References 6 Money as the Ability and Some Related Issues Money Vis-à-Vis the Purchasing Power Money Creation, Transfer, and Destruction Universality of Money The Name of the Money References 7 Money as the Ability and Inflation Economic Analysis of Inflation Money, Price Level, and Inflation References 8 The Causes of Inflation Inflation due to Increased Human Desire Inflation due to Government Policies Concluding Remarks on Inflation References 9 Some After Thoughts and the Question of Economic Policies References References Index