Business and Personal Finance Dictionary

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• STORE OF VALUE
  
  Money can be used as store of value, i.e. a way to accumulate value until one wants to use it. Historically, there have been many cases where money was *not* a store of value (e.g.: before the Industrial Age, the main storage of value was land, land improvements, and livestock; and today people store value in stocks in companies investing in assets that keep (or increase in) value over time, such as forests, etc.). There is a social cost in using currency as store of value, because when currency is stored it is unavailable for transactions by other people. Demurrage is a way of encouraging people to use the currency not as a store of value but only as a medium of exchange.
  
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