Money in social life: institutional nature and monetary behavior under debate

This article addresses the most relevant approaches and lines of research in economic sociology and social sciences regarding the transformations of money, its social nature, and the analysis of monetary behavior. The main objective is to identify key areas of study and examine gaps in the specialized literature across three dimensions: money as an institutional phenomenon, innovations and new monetary spaces, and the use of money in social life as part of broader processes of economization. The methodology is based on an integrative review of the literature. Among the key findings, the article proposes a theoretical articulation that connects the conception of money-credit as an institutional fact with theories that explain monetary economic action at the micro level. It concludes that advancing the sociological theory of economic behavior requires a more coherent articulation of the theory of social differentiation of money in alignment with sociological conceptions of money as a social institution.