Toward a general theory of credit and money

Money is not a thing but a species of credit, and hence a social relation involving rights and obligations. It emerged as the most abstract species in the course of the general process of evolution of credit. Formulation of a theory of credit is, therefore, logically prior to any theory of money. A framework proposed along this line by Macleod, during the second half of the 19th century, has been neglected until now. Combined with Walras's numeraire and etalon concepts, this approach provides the foundation for a General Theory of Credit and Money, presented in this paper. © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers.