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Slide 01
History of Money
- From cowrie shells to cryptocurrency: a 10,000-year journey through the invention, evolution, and future of the medium that makes civilisation possible.
- 30+ slides • Scroll to navigate
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Slide 02
Table of Contents
- Before Money: Barter and Its Limits
- Commodity Money: Shells, Salt, and Cattle
- The First Coins: Lydia and Beyond
- Greek and Roman Monetary Systems
- Chinese Innovations: Bronze and Paper
- Medieval Banking and Bills of Exchange
- The Gold Standard Era
- Central Banking Emerges
- Bretton Woods and the Dollar
- Fiat Money and Floating Rates
- Electronic Money and Credit Cards
- Mobile Payments and Digital Wallets
- Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin
- Central Bank Digital Currencies
- The Future of Money
- Reading List
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Slide 03
Before Money: The Myth of Barter
- Economists long assumed that pre-monetary societies relied on direct barter -- "I give you fish, you give me grain." In reality, anthropologists like David Graeber have shown this was exceedingly rare.
- Most pre-monetary societies used gift economies based on obligation and reciprocity
- Debt came before money, not after -- tallies of obligation predated coins by millennia
- The "double coincidence of wants" problem was real but solved socially, not through barter
- Credit systems operated in Mesopotamia by at least 3500 BCE
- Barter typically emerged only when monetary systems collapsed, not before they existed
- "For much of human history, money was not a thing but a relationship -- a promise to repay."
- -- David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011)
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Slide 04
Commodity Money: The First Currencies
- Long before coins, humans used objects with intrinsic value as media of exchange.
- Cowrie Shells
- Used from ~1200 BCE in China to the 20th century in parts of Africa. Durable, portable, hard to counterfeit. The Chinese character for "money" (貝) depicts a cowrie.
- Salt
- Roman soldiers may have been partially paid in salt -- origin of "salary" (from Latin salarium). Salt bars served as currency in Ethiopia until the 20th century.
- Cattle
- The Latin word pecunia (money) derives from pecus (cattle). In Homer's Iliad, the value of armour is given in oxen.
- Grain & Barley
- Mesopotamian temples maintained grain banks by 3000 BCE. The shekel was originally a unit of weight for barley (~180 grains).
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Slide 05
Mesopotamian Credit: Money Before Coins
- The Sumerian and Babylonian economies operated sophisticated credit systems thousands of years before the first coin was struck.
- Clay tablets from Uruk (~3100 BCE) record debts in standardised units of barley and silver
- The shekel (~8.3 grams of silver) served as the unit of account in Ur III period (2112-2004 BCE)
- Temples and palaces functioned as proto-banks, storing grain and issuing receipts
- The Code of Hammurabi (c. 1754 BCE) regulated interest rates: 20% on silver loans, 33% on grain
- Bills of exchange circulated among Assyrian merchants trading between Anatolia and Mesopotamia
- These economies prove that units of account and credit preceded physical currency -- a crucial insight for understanding money's nature.
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Slide 06
The First Coins: Lydia, c. 600 BCE
- The kingdom of Lydia (modern western Turkey) produced the earliest known coins -- small lumps of electrum (a gold-silver alloy) stamped with a lion's head.
- c. 640-630 BCE -- Earliest Lydian electrum coins minted under King Alyattes
- c. 560 BCE -- King Croesus introduces pure gold and silver coins, establishing bimetallic standard
- c. 550 BCE -- Persian Empire adopts coinage; gold daric and silver siglos spread across Near East
- c. 500 BCE -- Greek city-states issue their own coins; Athens' "owls" (tetradrachm) become dominant trade coin
- c. 400 BCE -- Coinage has spread to India, North Africa, and the Western Mediterranean
- Why coins mattered: they combined a unit of account, a store of value, and a medium of exchange in a single, state-guaranteed object.
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Slide 07
Greek Monetary Innovation
- Ancient Greece turned coinage into an art form and a political statement.
- Key Coins
- Athenian Owl (tetradrachm, ~17g silver) -- dominant Mediterranean trade coin for 300+ years
- Corinthian Pegasus -- widely circulated in western Greece and Magna Graecia
- Aeginetan "Turtle" -- one of the earliest standardised Greek coins, heavier weight standard
- Alexander the Great's coinage unified standards across an empire stretching to India
- Innovations
- Coins as propaganda: rulers' portraits appeared on coins starting with Alexander
- Money-changers (trapezitai) emerged as proto-bankers in the Agora
- Pasion of Athens (died 370 BCE) -- an ex-slave who became one of the wealthiest bankers in Greece
- Greek city-states practiced debasement during crises, reducing silver content
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Slide 08
Roman Money and the Denarius System
- Rome built a monetary system that would influence Western finance for 2,000 years.
- CoinMetalValuePeriod
- AsBronze/CopperBase unit280 BCE onward
- SestertiusBronze (originally silver)4 asses211 BCE onward
- DenariusSilver (~3.9g initially)16 asses211 BCE - 3rd c. CE
- AureusGold (~8g under Augustus)25 denarii1st c. BCE - 4th c. CE
- SolidusGold (4.5g)Replaced aureus309 CE - 11th c.
- The Great Debasement: The silver content of the denarius fell from ~95% under Augustus to ~5% by 270 CE under Gallienus, causing severe inflation. Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices (301 CE) attempted price controls -- and failed.
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Slide 09
Chinese Monetary Innovation
- China pursued a radically different path from the Mediterranean world, with innovations centuries ahead of Europe.
- c. 1000 BCE -- Bronze "spade money" and "knife money" circulate in Zhou dynasty states
- 221 BCE -- Qin Shi Huang unifies currency: the round ban liang coin with square centre hole becomes standard
- 118 BCE -- Han dynasty introduces the wuzhu coin, which remains in use for 700+ years
- 7th-9th c. -- Tang dynasty merchants create feiqian ("flying money") -- paper deposit receipts transferable between cities
- 1024 CE -- Song dynasty issues the world's first government paper money: the jiaozi in Sichuan province
- 1260 CE -- Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty makes paper money the sole legal tender (documented by Marco Polo)
- 1375 CE -- Ming dynasty hyperinflation destroys confidence in paper money; China returns to silver and copper
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Slide 10
Islamic Golden Age: Finance Without Interest
- The Islamic world (7th-13th centuries) developed sophisticated financial instruments while navigating the Quranic prohibition on riba (interest/usury).
- The Gold Dinar
- Caliph Abd al-Malik (696 CE) introduced a purely Islamic gold dinar (~4.25g), replacing Byzantine and Sassanid coins. It circulated from Spain to India.
- Suftaja (Bills of Exchange)
- A merchant in Baghdad could deposit money with an agent and receive a letter of credit cashable in another city -- centuries before Italian bills of exchange.
- Sakk (Cheques)
- Written payment orders drawn on banks. The English word "cheque" likely derives from the Arabic sakk. Used widely by 9th-century Abbasid merchants.
- Mudaraba Partnerships
- Profit-sharing contracts allowing investment without fixed interest. One partner provides capital, the other labour; profits split by agreement, losses borne by the investor.
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Slide 11
Medieval European Banking
- After centuries of monetary fragmentation, Italian city-states reinvented banking and catalysed Europe's commercial revolution.
- Key Innovations
- Bills of exchange -- perfected by Italian merchants to move money across borders without shipping coin
- Double-entry bookkeeping -- codified by Luca Pacioli (1494) but practised since the 13th century
- Deposit banking -- accepting deposits and making loans, pioneered in Genoa and Venice
- The Florentine gold florin (1252) became Europe's premier trade coin for 200 years
- Notable Banking Houses
- Bardi & Peruzzi -- Florentine "super-companies" that financed kings (and were bankrupted by Edward III of England's default, 1345)
- Medici Bank (1397-1494) -- pan-European network, papal banker, pioneered holding company structure
- Fugger Family (Augsburg) -- financed Hapsburg emperors, controlled European copper and silver mining
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Slide 12
The Spanish Silver Flood
- The conquest of the Americas unleashed a torrent of precious metals that reshaped the global economy.
- Between 1500 and 1800, Spanish America produced an estimated 150,000 tonnes of silver -- mostly from Potosi (Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico)
- The Spanish dollar (piece of eight / real de a ocho) became the world's first global currency, circulating from Manila to London
- The resulting Price Revolution saw European prices rise 300-400% between 1500 and 1650
- Silver flowed from Acapulco to Manila on the Manila Galleons, then into China to pay for silk, porcelain, and tea
- China's Ming dynasty (and later Qing) absorbed roughly half of all New World silver, underpinning its silver-based tax system
- "The silver mountain of Potosi was the first wonder of the world, and the exploitation of its mines the greatest tragedy."
- -- Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America
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Slide 13
Birth of Paper Money in Europe
- European paper money emerged not from invention but from necessity -- wars, trade, and the limits of metal coin.
- 1661 -- Stockholm Banco (Sweden) issues Europe's first banknotes (kreditivsedlar) to address a copper coin shortage
- 1694 -- Bank of England founded to finance William III's war against France; issues banknotes against government debt
- 1716-1720 -- John Law's Banque Royale in France creates paper money backed by Louisiana land claims; spectacular collapse in the "Mississippi Bubble"
- 1775 -- American Continental Congress issues "Continentals" to finance the Revolution; massive over-printing leads to "not worth a Continental"
- 1790s -- French Revolutionary assignats backed by confiscated church lands; hyperinflation follows
- Pattern: early paper money often emerged during wartime, worked temporarily, then was over-issued and collapsed. The lesson took centuries to learn.
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Slide 14
The Gold Standard: 1821-1914
- The classical gold standard represented the most stable monetary system in modern history -- and its collapse reshaped the 20th century.
- How It Worked
- Each country defined its currency as a fixed weight of gold. The British pound = 113 grains of pure gold. Anyone could convert banknotes to gold at the central bank. Exchange rates were fixed by gold parity.
- Key Dates
- 1821: UK formally adopts gold standard. 1871: Germany joins after Franco-Prussian War. 1879: US resumes gold convertibility. By 1900, most major economies are on gold.
- Benefits
- Low inflation (UK prices barely changed 1821-1914). Fixed exchange rates facilitated trade. Capital flowed freely across borders. London became global financial centre.
- Costs
- Deflation squeezed debtors and farmers. No monetary policy flexibility during recessions. Gold discoveries (California 1848, Witwatersrand 1886) caused unpredictable money supply shifts.
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Slide 15
The Gold Standard Collapses: 1914-1944
- 1914: WWI begins; all belligerents suspend gold convertibility to print money for the war effort
- 1922: Genoa Conference establishes a "gold exchange standard" -- currencies backed by gold or dollars/pounds
- 1925: Churchill returns Britain to gold at the pre-war parity, overvaluing the pound -- disastrous for exports
- 1929-31: Great Depression triggers bank runs and gold outflows; Britain leaves gold (Sept 1931), followed by dozens of countries
- 1933: FDR takes the US off gold domestically, confiscates private gold holdings (Executive Order 6102), then revalues gold from $20.67 to $35/oz
- 1930s: Competitive devaluations ("beggar-thy-neighbour") worsen the Depression and fuel political extremism
- 1944: Bretton Woods Conference designs a new system for the post-war world
- "The gold standard is already a barbarous relic."
- -- John Maynard Keynes, A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923)
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Slide 16
Bretton Woods: The Dollar as World Money
- In July 1944, 730 delegates from 44 nations met at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to design the post-war monetary order.
- The System
- US dollar pegged to gold at $35/oz
- All other currencies pegged to the dollar (adjustable)
- IMF created to manage the system and provide emergency lending
- World Bank created for reconstruction and development
- Capital controls permitted to maintain exchange rate stability
- Keynes vs. White
- Keynes proposed a supranational currency ("bancor") managed by an International Clearing Union
- Harry Dexter White (US Treasury) insisted on dollar centrality -- the US held 2/3 of world gold reserves
- White's plan won; America's economic dominance was too great to resist
- The "Triffin Dilemma" was baked in: the world needed dollars, but supplying them meant US deficits
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Slide 17
Nixon Shock: August 15, 1971
- President Richard Nixon's decision to suspend dollar-gold convertibility ended the Bretton Woods system and ushered in the era of fiat money.
- By 1971, US gold reserves had fallen from $25 billion (1949) to $10 billion, while foreign dollar claims exceeded $40 billion
- France under de Gaulle had been aggressively converting dollars to gold, sending warships to collect bullion from New York
- On August 15, Nixon announced the "temporary" suspension of gold convertibility -- it was never restored
- By 1973, all major currencies were floating against each other
- The Smithsonian Agreement (Dec 1971) attempted to save fixed rates; it collapsed within 14 months
- The world had entered uncharted territory: for the first time in history, no major currency was linked to a physical commodity. Every dollar, pound, and yen was now pure fiat money -- valuable because the government said so.
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Slide 18
What Is Fiat Money?
- Definition
- Money that has value because a government declares it legal tender, not because it is backed by a physical commodity. From Latin fiat -- "let it be done."
- Advantages
- Flexible money supply allows central banks to respond to recessions. No dependence on gold mining. Enables modern monetary policy (inflation targeting, QE).
- Risks
- Governments can over-issue money, causing inflation or hyperinflation. Requires institutional discipline and central bank independence. Every fiat currency in history has eventually lost most of its purchasing power.
- Track Record
- The US dollar has lost ~87% of its 1971 purchasing power. But managed inflation (2-3%/year) is considered preferable to the deflation and instability of the gold standard era.
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Slide 19
Hyperinflation: When Money Dies
- Hyperinflation (typically defined as >50% monthly inflation) has destroyed currencies dozens of times.
- CountryPeriodPeak Monthly InflationCause
- Germany (Weimar)1921-192329,500%War reparations, printing
- Hungary1945-19464.19 x 1016%Post-WWII devastation
- Yugoslavia1992-1994313,000,000%War, sanctions, printing
- Zimbabwe2007-200879,600,000,000%Land reform, fiscal collapse
- Venezuela2016-2021~200% (sustained)Oil collapse, mismanagement
- Common thread: hyperinflation is always a fiscal phenomenon -- governments printing money because they cannot tax or borrow.
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Slide 20
The Rise of Electronic Money
- 1950 -- Diners Club introduces the first charge card (Frank McNamara's "forgotten wallet" dinner)
- 1958 -- Bank of America launches BankAmericard (later Visa) in Fresno, California
- 1966 -- Interbank Card Association formed (later Mastercard)
- 1967 -- Barclays installs the first ATM in Enfield, London (inventor: John Shepherd-Barron)
- 1970s -- SWIFT network connects 239 banks in 15 countries for international transfers
- 1971 -- Nasdaq becomes the first electronic stock exchange
- 1994 -- Stanford Federal Credit Union offers first internet banking
- 1998 -- PayPal founded, enabling person-to-person electronic payments
- 1999 -- Approx. $1.4 trillion in credit card transactions in the US alone
- By 2000, most "money" existed only as entries in bank databases. Physical cash was becoming a minority of the money supply.
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Slide 21
Money in the Digital Age
- Mobile Payments
- M-Pesa (Kenya, 2007) proved that mobile money could leapfrog traditional banking. By 2023, M-Pesa processed over $300 billion annually across 7 African countries. In China, Alipay and WeChat Pay handle over 90% of mobile transactions.
- Contactless & NFC
- Tap-to-pay cards and phone wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay) have made physical card swiping obsolete in many countries. In the UK, contactless accounted for 83% of card transactions by 2023.
- The Cashless Frontier
- Sweden: only 8% of transactions use cash. Some Swedish bank branches no longer handle cash at all. Norway, Denmark, and South Korea are similarly nearly cashless.
- Financial Inclusion
- The World Bank estimates 1.4 billion adults remain unbanked (2021). Mobile money has been the primary tool for reaching them, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
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Slide 22
Bitcoin: Money Without the State
- On October 31, 2008, a pseudonymous figure called Satoshi Nakamoto published a 9-page whitepaper: "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System."
- The Genesis Block was mined on January 3, 2009, embedding the headline: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"
- Key innovation: a blockchain -- a distributed, immutable ledger maintained by proof-of-work consensus without a central authority
- Fixed supply cap of 21 million bitcoins, with supply halving roughly every 4 years ("halvings")
- First real-world transaction: 10,000 BTC for two pizzas (May 22, 2010) -- "Bitcoin Pizza Day"
- Bitcoin challenges the fundamental premise that money requires a state: it is borderless, censorship-resistant, and controlled by no government
- "The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work."
- -- Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009
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Slide 23
The Crypto Ecosystem Expands
- ProjectYearInnovation
- Ethereum2015Smart contracts and programmable money; Turing-complete blockchain
- Tether (USDT)2014First major stablecoin; pegged 1:1 to USD (controversially)
- DeFi Summer2020Decentralised lending, borrowing, and trading without intermediaries
- NFTs2021Non-fungible tokens for digital art and collectibles; $25B market
- Terra/LUNA2022Algorithmic stablecoin collapse ($40B wiped out in days)
- FTX2022Major exchange collapse due to fraud; founder Sam Bankman-Fried convicted
- The crypto market peaked at ~$3 trillion in November 2021. Despite crashes, the underlying technology -- distributed ledgers, smart contracts, programmable money -- continues to influence mainstream finance.
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Slide 24
Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)
- Over 130 countries (representing 98% of global GDP) are now exploring or piloting CBDCs.
- Launched or Piloting
- Bahamas -- Sand Dollar (Oct 2020), first nationwide CBDC
- Nigeria -- eNaira (Oct 2021); low adoption so far
- China -- e-CNY (digital yuan) piloted across major cities since 2020; $250B+ in transactions by 2024
- India -- Digital Rupee pilot launched Dec 2022
- ECB -- Digital Euro in "preparation phase" since Oct 2023
- Key Debates
- Privacy: CBDCs could enable unprecedented government surveillance of transactions
- Bank disintermediation: if citizens hold accounts at the central bank, commercial banks lose deposits
- Programmability: governments could set expiry dates on money or restrict purchases
- Geopolitics: China's e-CNY is partly motivated by reducing dependence on the US dollar
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Slide 25
The Dollar's Global Dominance
- Despite predictions of its decline, the US dollar remains the world's dominant currency by virtually every measure.
- Reserve Currency
- ~58% of global foreign exchange reserves are in USD (2024). The euro is a distant second at ~20%. The yuan is ~2.3%.
- Trade Invoicing
- ~40% of global trade is invoiced in dollars -- far exceeding the US share of world trade (~10%). Oil, most commodities, and 90% of forex transactions involve the dollar.
- SWIFT Payments
- ~47% of international SWIFT payments are in USD. Dollar dominance in global payments infrastructure gives the US enormous sanctions leverage.
- De-dollarisation?
- BRICS nations discuss alternatives, but network effects are powerful. No currency combines the US advantages: deep capital markets, rule of law, military power, and the "exorbitant privilege."
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Slide 26
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
- MMT, championed by economists like Stephanie Kelton, challenges conventional thinking about government spending and money.
- Core Claims
- A sovereign government that issues its own fiat currency can never run out of money
- Taxes don't "fund" spending -- they drain excess money to control inflation
- Government deficits = private sector surpluses (accounting identity)
- The real constraint on spending is inflation, not the deficit
- Full employment should be guaranteed via a federal Job Guarantee
- Critiques
- Inflation may be harder to control politically than MMT assumes
- Doesn't apply to countries borrowing in foreign currencies
- Bond markets may impose discipline regardless of theory
- Larry Summers: "the voodoo economics of our time"
- Gained attention during COVID-era stimulus spending debates
- "The deficit myth is the biggest impediment to building a better economy."
- -- Stephanie Kelton, The Deficit Myth (2020)
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Slide 27
Money and Inequality
- The design of monetary systems has always had distributional consequences.
- Inflation as a tax: those holding cash (typically the poor) lose purchasing power; those holding assets (the wealthy) benefit from rising asset prices
- Quantitative Easing (2008-2022): central banks bought trillions in bonds, inflating asset prices. The S&P 500 rose 582% from its 2009 low to 2021 peak -- benefiting the top 10% who own 89% of US stocks
- Credit access: wealthier individuals get lower interest rates and more credit. The "Matthew Effect" of finance: to those who have, more shall be given
- Financial exclusion: check-cashing fees, payday loans, and overdraft charges cost unbanked Americans an estimated $40,000 over a lifetime
- Seigniorage: the profit from issuing currency accrues to the issuer. The US earns ~$20B annually from physical dollars circulating abroad
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Slide 28
The Psychology of Money
- Money is as much a psychological and social phenomenon as an economic one.
- Mental Accounting
- Richard Thaler showed that people treat money differently depending on its source ("found" money is spent more freely) and its intended purpose (vacation fund vs. emergency fund), even though money is fungible.
- Money Illusion
- People focus on nominal values rather than real (inflation-adjusted) values. A 2% raise with 3% inflation feels better than a 1% pay cut with 0% inflation -- even though the latter is better.
- Loss Aversion
- Kahneman and Tversky found that losing $100 feels about twice as painful as gaining $100 feels good. This shapes everything from investment decisions to wage negotiations.
- Social Meaning
- Sociologist Viviana Zelizer showed that people "earmark" money -- inheritance is treated differently from wages, which differ from lottery winnings. Money is never socially neutral.
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Slide 29
The Future of Money
- Several trends are converging to reshape money in the coming decades.
- Programmable Money
- Smart contracts could automate payments, enforce conditions (money that can only be spent on food), and create self-executing financial instruments. Both promising and dystopian.
- AI and Finance
- Algorithmic trading already dominates markets. AI could personalise credit scoring, detect fraud in real time, and manage monetary policy -- raising questions of accountability and bias.
- Biometric Payments
- Pay with your face, fingerprint, or palm. Amazon's "Just Walk Out" technology and palm-scanning (Amazon One) point toward a future where your body is your wallet.
- Multi-Polar Currency
- Will the dollar's dominance persist? Some see a future of competing digital currencies -- dollar, yuan, euro -- with individuals choosing currencies like they choose apps.
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Slide 30
Key Lessons from 10,000 Years
- Money is a social technology -- it works because people collectively agree it works. Confidence is everything.
- Debt preceded coins. Credit and obligation are older and more fundamental than physical currency.
- Every monetary system eventually changes. Gold, silver, paper, electronic -- each seemed permanent to contemporaries.
- Governments and money are inseparable. Even Bitcoin exists within a regulatory and legal framework defined by states.
- Inflation is a choice. Hyperinflation is always the result of political decisions, not economic inevitability.
- Technology changes the form, not the function. From clay tablets to blockchains, the core functions -- unit of account, medium of exchange, store of value -- remain the same.
- Financial innovation is double-edged. Every breakthrough (credit, paper money, derivatives, crypto) creates new possibilities and new risks.
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Slide 31
Key Figures in the History of Money
- PersonEraContribution
- Croesus of Lydia6th c. BCEFirst bimetallic (gold/silver) coinage
- Kublai Khan13th c.First to enforce paper money as sole legal tender
- Luca Pacioli1494Published the first printed guide to double-entry bookkeeping
- John Law1716-1720Paper money experiment and first modern financial bubble
- Alexander Hamilton1790sCreated the US financial system: national debt, central bank, mint
- John Maynard Keynes1930s-40sRedefined monetary economics; proposed bancor at Bretton Woods
- Milton Friedman1960s-80sMonetarism: "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon"
- Satoshi Nakamoto2008-2010Created Bitcoin and blockchain technology
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Slide 32
Reading List
- Essential
- Niall Ferguson -- The Ascent of Money (2008): sweeping narrative history of finance
- David Graeber -- Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011): anthropological challenge to orthodox economics
- Christine Desan -- Making Money (2014): constitutional history of money creation
- Historical
- Peter Bernstein -- The Power of Gold (2000): gold's role from antiquity to modernity
- Glyn Davies -- A History of Money (4th ed., 2016): the definitive academic reference
- Barry Eichengreen -- Globalizing Capital (3rd ed., 2019): international monetary system since 1850
- Modern & Future
- Saifedean Ammous -- The Bitcoin Standard (2018): Austrian economics case for Bitcoin
- Eswar Prasad -- The Future of Money (2021): CBDCs, crypto, and digital transformation
- Stephanie Kelton -- The Deficit Myth (2020): the MMT perspective on government spending
- Psychology & Sociology
- Morgan Housel -- The Psychology of Money (2020): behavioral insights on wealth and finance
- Viviana Zelizer -- The Social Meaning of Money (1994): how people assign meaning to money
- Georg Simmel -- The Philosophy of Money (1900): foundational sociological analysis
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