Money as a Medium Exchange Barter Trading is too Clumsy Large-Scale Production requires a Medium of Exchange Recognition and measurement of changes in the value of money. Classification of Money Stabilization of the Price Level The Value of Money or General Level of Prices Where The Unit of Account is a Fixed Quantity of Bullion, Uncoined or Coined. The value of money or general level of prices where the unit of account is a coin of which the issue is limited. The value of money or general level of prices where the unit of account is a bank-note or currency note. Causes of Change in the General Price Level Possible Occasions of Inflation Ways of Dealing with Risk: Transfer To Specialists Choice Criteria Under Risk Hedging The origin and the functions of money Money, when its use has grown habitual The early history of money Currency in the hunting state Currency in the pastoral state Articles of ornament as currency Currency in the agriculture state Manufactured and miscellaneous articles as currency The invention of coining Qualities of the material of money Utility and value Protability Indestructibility Homogeneity Divisibility Stability of value Cognisability Legal Tender The Greenbacks - The Fluctuating Premium on Gold The Greenbacks - The Effects of Greenbacks Upon Wages Rent - Urban Rents Rent - Farm Rents Interest and Loan Capital Purchasing Power of the Principal of Loans The Rate of Interest Profits Profits in Agriculture Statistical Evidence Regarding Profits The Production and Consumption of Wealth Production Consumption Cost of the Civil War Greenbacks and Expenditures The Greenbacks and Receipts Contraction and Inflation of the Legal Tenders Passage of the Resumption Act The Struggle for Resumption The Purchasing Power of the Dollar Measurement of Changes in the Purchasing Power of Dollar Results of Changes in the General Price Level Buying Problems of the Consumer What is Good Buying? The Principles of Foreign Exchange The General Price Level Price Policies Price Flexibility Price Leadership Price Discrimination Special Pricing Practices Postage Stamp System Policy Implications

The changes in the purchasing power of the dollar resulting from changes in the retail price level are often described as changes in the cost of living. It is to be noted, however, that this is not the only type of change that may be described as a change in the cost of living. The phrase "cost of living" is variously used. It is sometimes used synonymously with total expenditures, or the amount spent by a family for food, clothing, shelter and other goods during a given period. Thus a change in expenditures may be described as a change in the "cost of living." But changes in expenditures occur from a variety of causes; one of the most frequent is a change in the standard of living, that is, new goods come into use and the old ones are used in different quantity or quality. A change of this sort is the almost inevitable consequence of a rise in the money income. It is also the familiar and expected result of a whole congeries of forces at work in modern western cultures, advance of scientific knowledge, ease of communication, popular education, commercial enterprise in advertising and the promotion of new goods. A refinement of definition is obtained by describing the "cost of living" as the expenditure necessary to give a given group of families the goods they consider essential, that is, the expenditure necessary to enable them to maintain their customary standard. Thus we have the "cost of living" of the professional class, of farm families, or of wage-earners. The amount may be secured in two ways, one, by obtaining data showing the expenditures of the group and calling the practice of the majority the "cost of living," the other by working out a commodity-quantity budget which presumably represents their requirements and pricing it from time to time. The former procedure shows changes in the standard of living of the group indistinguishably merged with changes in prices; the latter shows changes in the purchasing power of the dollar alone, and it may be, as time goes on, its power to purchase goods no longer considered essential by the group.