Resource Theory

Abstract

At the marketplace, interpersonal behavior has been traditionally conceptualized as exchange of resources. In a barter society commodities were literally exchanged for one another. Later on, one commodity—money—became standardized and widely accepted; the money-merchandise exchange was then born, and to this day it has maintained the pride of place in economic practice and thinking. But money is also exchanged with services when we pay the plumber for repairing the pipes and the gardener for improving the landscape. Information is exchanged with money when we buy a newspaper or register for a course. Only recently, economists have turned their attention to the exchange of money with services and with information. However, these areas of investigation are still regarded with suspicion, since they fail to lend themselves easily to the elegant formulations of the money—commodities exchange.