Trading an hour of tutoring for help with gardening is an example of what?
AnswerBarter
Services are exchanged directly, with no money involved.
Business · Facts & stats
Barter facts & stats
7 fact-checked facts about bartering, trade and the history of money, each with the reason behind it. 5 more are in today's round and join this page after it closes.
The basics
What largely replaced barter as the main way people trade?
AnswerMoney
Money solves many of barter's practical problems.
Going deeper
What is barter's 'double coincidence of wants'?
AnswerEach trader must want what the other offers
Without it, a direct swap can't happen.
Which economist wrote of humanity's 'propensity to truck, barter, and exchange'?
AnswerAdam Smith
The phrase appears in 'The Wealth of Nations' (1776).
What was the ancient network of trade routes linking China and the Mediterranean called?
AnswerThe Silk Road
Silk, spices and ideas moved along these routes.
Expert level
The kula ring, a ceremonial exchange of shell necklaces and armbands, is from which islands?
AnswerThe Trobriand Islands
Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski famously studied it.
The oldest known coins, made of electrum, came from which ancient kingdom?
AnswerLydia
Lydia, in modern Turkey, struck coins in the 7th century BC.
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