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> Cigarettes in prisons are used as money.

No. That's barter. Money has very specific characteristics. Cigarettes in prison fail these three: divisibility, durability and uniformity.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/education/economic-lowdown-podcas...



Cigarettes have all those properties, just somewhat imperfectly. Cartons are divisble to packs which are divisible to individual cigarettes. Cigarettes are pretty durable - if you don't get them wet and avoid breaking them they have a reasonably long shelf life. And they are pretty uniform in each division - carton, pack, cigarette. Since prisons allow prisoners to smoke cigarettes they have the cover of utility while being used as money.


The article you link yourself makes clear that those are desired, "ideal" characteristics, not the definition as you suggest.


I always thought that money has three characteristics: fungibility, divisibility, and verifiability (although divisibility can be relaxed for small values). Cigarettes pass two of the three, and fail only the weakest one, in a fashion that doesn't matter.




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