Numéraire

The numéraire (or numeraire) is a basic standard by which value is computed. In mathematical economics it is a tradeable economic entity in terms of whose price the relative prices of all other tradeables are expressed. In a monetary economy, acting as the numéraire is one of the functions of money, to serve as a unit of account: to provide a common benchmark relative to which the worths of various goods and services are measured. Using a numeraire, whether monetary or some consumable good, facilitates value comparisons when only the relative prices are relevant, as in general equilibrium theory. When economic analysis refers to a particular good as the numéraire, one says that all other prices are normalized by the price of that good. For example, if a unit of good g has twice the market value of a unit of the numeraire, then the (relative) price of g is 2. Since the value of one unit of the numeraire relative to one unit of itself is 1, the price of the numeraire is always 1.