CSEC Principles of Business  /  The nature of business  /  From barter to money

start here · about 15 minutes

From barter to money

Long ago, families grew or made almost everything they needed: a subsistence economy. When they began to swap their extra goods, that was barter: exchanging goods and services without using money. Barter was so awkward that people turned to money, from shells to coins to notes. Paper 1 asks what is NOT a function of money almost every year.

By the end of this page you can

  • Explain what barter is and how it developed
  • Give the advantages and disadvantages of barter
  • Name the functions of money
  • Define legal tender, trade and the double coincidence of wants

Goals tick themselves off as you try the activities below.

Two cupped hands holding cowrie shells, once used as money, beside modern coins.

Photo: Bin im Garten, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped, resized, JPEG q72.

Shells and coins: two kinds of money, centuries apart.

How often it shows up in past papers

All papers14 of 23 papers
Last 50 of 5 · 2023–2026

Paper 1 counts come from our past-paper bank of CSEC Principles of Business Paper 1s. The last-5 row shows how often it came up in the five most recent papers.

Inside this topic

  1. Before moneyLocked
  2. What money doesLocked
  3. Key termsLocked
  4. Test yourselfmarkedLocked
  5. Practise for real · 16 past questionsLocked