The barter system is an economic institution in which goods and services are exchanged directly for other goods and services without the use of money as an intermediary, requiring what economists call a double coincidence of wants between trading parties. Barter has served as a foundational form of exchange in societies without a common medium of currency, and continues in specific modern contexts such as countertrade between businesses or nations, informal community exchange networks, and emergency exchange during currency collapse. Anthropologists have debated how central pure barter actually was to early human economies, since many documented traditional societies relied more heavily on gift exchange, redistribution or credit arrangements than on direct barter.
Facts
Institution TypeEconomic institution: a system of direct exchange of goods or services for other goods or services, without a medium of exchange such as money. 1 Emergence PeriodConsidered one of the earliest systems of economic exchange, used before the invention of money, though not precisely datable to a single origin point or place. 1 Connections
Associated With
Barter, direct exchange of goods without a common medium, is conventionally treated as the economic stage that monetary exchange historically supplanted, though the two systems have long coexisted.
Barter exchange has historically taken place within marketplaces alongside monetized trade, especially in economies with limited currency circulation.
Sources
1. Barter (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, Lead section
is a system of exchange in which participants in a transaction directly exchange goods or services for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money
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