I just came across an interesting thought experiment. Imagine if all the cash in the world were evenly distributed among every inhabitant of the planet. A farmer from Wisconsin would get exactly the same amount as a potter in New Delhi, a shepherd in Namibia, or a dentist in Sydney. I wonder, how much money is there in the world per person?

The answer turned out to be surprisingly modest. Each person would get about $15,000. Or, simply put, the price of a Dacia Sandero. Yes, this budget-friendly car became the benchmark in this calculation.

The basis for this calculation is the money supply M2. This isn’t just cash in your wallet, but a broader concept — it includes currency in circulation, bank deposits, savings accounts, and other liquid assets with a maturity of up to two years. In simpler terms, these are the funds you can get into your hands relatively quickly. According to CEIC, the total amount of money in the world in M2 format is $123.3 trillion in 2024.

Dividing this amount by 8.16 billion people results in exactly those same $15,108 per capita. Or about €14,000 if counted in European currency.

There’s an interesting point — this is not the same as global wealth. According to UBS, the total net private wealth in the world is estimated at $488 trillion. But this includes real estate, stocks, jewelry — everything that can’t be turned into cash in five minutes.

By the way, it was interesting to check this calculation using one country as an example. Take Spain. The M2 money supply there is about $1.65 trillion with a population of 49 million. That means each Spaniard, if distributed equally, would get $33,500. About twice as much as the average resident of the planet. This clearly shows the difference in economic development and the volume of money circulation between developed countries and the global average.

So, if someone asks how much money there is in the world, the answer depends on how you count. But per inhabitant, it’s more modest than it might seem at first glance.