50 Things That Made The Modern Economy with Tim Harford

Almost 750 years ago, a young Venetian merchant named Marco Polo

wrote a remarkable book chronicling his travels in China.

It was called the Book of the Marvels of the World

and it was full of strange foreign customs that he claimed to have seen.

But there was one that was so extraordinary, Marco Polo could barely contain himself.

Delhi, Dauai Maiter, he wrote,

you never would be satisfied that I was keeping within truth and reason.

What was exciting Marco so much?

He was one of the first Europeans to witness an invention that remains at the foundation of the modern economy.

Paper money.

Of course, the paper itself isn't the point.

Modern paper money isn't made of paper, it's made of cotton fibres or a flexible plastic weave.

And the Chinese money that so fascinated the Venetian wasn't quite paper either.

It was made from a black sheet derived from the bark of mulberry trees,

signed by multiple officials and with a seal smothered in bright red,

vermillion authenticated by the Chinese emperor Jenghis Khan himself.

The chapter of Marco Polo's book was titled,

somewhat breathlessly,

how the great Khan causes the bark of trees,

made into something like paper,

to pass for money all over his country.

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