Hello,
There is no simple answer to your question. The most common measure of
the money in an economy is gross product, in this case gross world
product. Gross world product means the sum of the value of all the
goods and services produced in the world, including investments. The
CIA (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/xx.html) says
that gross world product in 2000 was an estimated $43.6 trillion in
U.S. dollars. For an explanation of gross domestic product, the
country-level equivelant of gross world product, see
(http://www.pbs.org/wnet/moneyshow/mba/040601.html).
Most of that $43.6 trillion is not cash. Economists can estimate the
amount of cash -- currency, checking accounts and traveler's checks
with a statistic called the M1 money supply. Adding money in money
market funds, savings accounts and small CDs gives us the M2 money
supply. See http://www.howstuffworks.com/question237.htm.
I was unable to find a world figure for money supply; most economists
are interested in how much its changing rather than the total number
of trillions of dollars. The U.S. M1 money supply was $1.182 trillion
in May 2002 (see http://www.stls.frb.org/fred/data/monetary/m1sl) and
the M2 money supply $5.543 trillion
(http://www.stls.frb.org/fred/data/monetary/m2sl).
I hope this satisfies your curiosity.
Search strategy:
Gross world product
://www.google.ca/search?q=gross+world+product&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&hl=en&meta=
Calculating gross world product
://www.google.ca/search?q=calculating+gross+domestic+product&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8
world money supply trillion
://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&q=world+money+supply+trillion&sa=N&tab=gw
world gdp money supply
://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&q=world+gdp+money+supply&meta=
M1 Canada United States France
://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&q=m1+canada+united+states+france&meta=
Money supply Canada United States France
://www.google.ca/search?q=money+supply+canada+united+states+france&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&start=10&sa=N
world money supply
://www.google.ca/search?q=world+money+supply&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8
M1 money supply
://www.google.ca/search?q=M1+money+supply&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8 |
