Money
- For other uses, see Money (disambiguation).
Money is a medium of exchange which acts as an intermediary market good. It can be traded and exchanged for other goods. As discussed below, money also has other characteristics.
Money itself must be a scarce good. Many items have been used as money, from naturally scarce precious metals and conch shells through cigarettes to entirely artificial money such as banknotes.
Modern money is essentially a token - an abstraction. Paper currency is perhaps the most common type of physical money today. However, goods such as gold or silver retain many of the essential properties of money.