The function of banks in national economy

To be able to understand the role and the work of banks properly, we must first say what the term 'national economy' means. It covers three principal fields: industry, commerce and direct services.

Industry provides energy, raw materials and goods. The extractive industry produces coal, oil, gas, iron ore and a number of other metals and minerals from the ground or seabed. These are needed by the manufacturing industry for the production of machines and all those goods, which the customers buy: the car, the TV set, furniture, the dishwasher in the kitchen etc.

However, we do not get these goods direct from the factory but buy them in a shop or a department store. They are transported there and delivered to our homes by railroad, sometimes by ship or air, especially if they have been imported.

This brings us to another field of economy, commerce, which can be divided into trade and the service industries.

Trade is the buying and selling of any commodity. It can be divided into home trade and foreign trade.

A television set is transported several times before we can switch it on in our living room. Transport is, of course, a service which industry, trade and the consumer make use of. But it is only one of the service industries.

If the television set is damaged or gets lost while being transported, the insurance pays for this. Insurance is a service industry that specialises in covering risks of all kinds: damage, loss, fire, accidents - to give just a few examples.

Industry and commerce depend on precise, up-to-date information, which could not be provided, if we did not have our highly developed communication services like the telephone, telex and the post.

You may have noticed that banks have not been mentioned yet. Where does banking link up with the other sectors of a national economy? The simple answer is everywhere.

Banking:

• collects money from its clients in small or large amounts

• provides efficient means and methods of payment for goods and services

• finances industry, commerce and direct services

• grants credits to consumers for the purchase of consumer goods

• sells foreign currencies

• has contacts with all important national and international money and capital markets, etc.

Text 18

MONEY

Money is anything that is in general use in the purchase of goods and services and in the discharge of debts. Money may also be defined as an evidence of debt owed by society. The money supply in the US consists of currency (paper money), coins, and demand deposits (checking accounts). Currency and coins are government-created money, whereas demand deposits are bank-created money. Of these three components of the money supply, demand deposits are by far the most important. Thus, most of the money supply is invisible, intangible, and abstract.

The two most important inherent attributes that money must possess in a modern credit economy are acceptability and stability. In earlier times in the evolution of money and monetary institutions in the United States, the attributes of divisibility, portability, and visibility were important. The two legal attributes of 'legal tender' and 'standard money' are not of as much importance today as in the past.

The four functions that money often performs are (1) standard of value, (2) medium of exchange, (3) store of value, and (4) standard of deferred payment. In a modern specialized economy, (2) and, most especially, (1) are the most important of these.

Although it is agreed that the value of money has fallen in the US over time, there are three in part conflicting theories of value that have been advanced to explain this phenomenon: the commodity, quantity, and income theories. Most economists today espouse either the second or, more typically, the third of these. Any money can retain its value as long as its issuance is limited; it need not have a commodity backing. Inflation or rising prices have been explained by demand and/or supply theories in recent years, although historically the former has been thought to provide the more satisfactory explanation.

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MONEY AND ITS FUNCTIONS

All values in the economic system are measured in terms of money. Our goods and services are sold for money, and that money is in turn exchanged for other goods and services. Coins are adequate for small transactions, while paper notes are used for general business. There is additionally a wider sense of the word 'money', covering anything, which is used as a means of exchange, whatever form it may take. Originally, a valuable metal (gold, silver or copper) served as a constant store of value, and even today the American dollar is technically 'backed' by the store of gold which the US government maintains. Because gold has been universally regarded as a very valuable metal, national currencies were for many years judged in terms of the so-called 'gold standard'.

Nowadays however valuable metal has generally been replaced by paper notes. National currencies are considered to be as strong as the national economies, which support them. Paper notes are issued by governments and authorized banks, and are known as 'legal tender'.

The value of money is basically its value as a medium of exchange, or as economists put it, its 'purchasing power'. This purchasing power is dependent on supply and demand. If too much money is available, its value decreases, and it does not buy as much as it did, say five years earlier. This condition is known as 'inflation'.

Text 20

INFLATION

The control of rising prices and the depreciating value of money has been an aim of economic policy for many years. In the past, it was thought that the control of inflation created unemployment and that inflation only occurred at times of full or near-full employment. In recent years, the problem has been much more serious because rising inflation has been accompanied by high levels of unemployment.

A simple description of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. It poses a serious problem because it has so many bad effects. The first obvious one is that one's money buys less and less as prices of goods and services continue to rise and one's standard of living falls as a result. This is made worse by the fact that people of low and fixed incomes, for example pensioners, are most seriously affected and they are the least able to help themselves.

It is argued by some economists that some inflation is good for the economy, since deflation leads to unemployment and depression, but clearly, a high level of inflation is injurious and makes economic progress difficult, if not possible. Successive governments, therefore, introduce policies which are designed to control inflation. These fall into two groups. The first aims to decrease demand for goods and services. It includes increases in taxation, restriction of credit, and raising of interest rates, all of which reduce consumers' spending power (demand). These measures are usually supported by reduced government expenditure which, in turn, decreases the amount of money circulating in the economy and is therefore a further control on demand.

The second group of measures aims to hold or reduce costs and therefore prices. The chief measure is the carrying out of an incomes policy designed to control wages and salaries at a specified level or specific ones to the level of increased productivity achieved.

Economists talk of, and distinguish between, cost-push inflation -price rises which occur because the costs of production are increasing more than output, and demand-pull inflation - price rises which occur as a result of increased demand. The two types of inflation are closely connected.

Control of inflation

In recent years many measures have been used in an attempt to control inflation. The main ones have been those which limit rises in incomes and prices. While prices and incomes policies do help to control inflation, they obviously do not provide a complete answer. The level of prices at home depends to some extend on the prices of imports, which are determined by factors outside our control, as well as on the value of home currency, which depends partly on the levels of other countries' currencies.

The only permanent answer to the control of inflation is an increase in productivity - and consequently total production - that is easier said than achieved. Many internal and external influences govern economic activity and performance. The government must try to influence and control these for the best interests of the country and its people, through measures which affect the supply of money in the economy, taxation and other controls.