Money is generally the item that is not considered an economic resource, unlike land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurial ability, which are standard factors of production in economics.

What counts as an economic resource?

Economists usually group economic resources (factors of production) into four main types.

  • Land (natural resources): Minerals, water, forests, agricultural land, etc.
  • Labor: Human effort—physical and mental work used in production.
  • Capital: Tools, machines, buildings, and equipment used to produce goods and services.
  • Entrepreneurship: The ability and willingness to organize the other resources and take risks to create or improve products.

All of these directly help produce goods and services, so they are classified as economic resources.

Why money is not an economic resource

Money plays an important role in the economy, but it is not counted as a factor of production.

  • Money is a medium of exchange and a store of value; it helps people buy real resources like land, labor, and capital.
  • It does not itself produce goods or services; instead, it represents claims on resources that do.

So, when a question asks, “Which of the following is not considered an economic resource?”, the correct choice is money (or any similar purely financial asset), assuming the other options are land, labor, capital, or entrepreneurial ability.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.