Ricardo on Money

A Reappraisal
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-0-415-66158-4
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd (Sales)

Buch, Englisch, 434 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 590 g

Reihe: Routledge Studies in the History of Economics

Despite his achievements, David Ricardo’s views on money have often been misunderstood and underappreciated. His advanced ideas had to wait until the twentieth century to be applied, and most historians of economic thought continue to consider him as an obsolete orthodox. The last book devoted in tribute to Ricardo as a monetary economist was published more than 25 years ago.

Ricardo on Money encompasses the whole of Ricardo’s writings on currency, whether in print, unpublished notes, correspondence, or reported parliamentary speeches and evidence. The aim of the book is at rehabilitating Ricardo as an unorthodox theorist on money and suggesting his relevance for modern analysis. It is divided into three parts: history, theory and policy. The first describes the factual and intellectual context of Ricardo’s monetary writings. The second part puts the concept of standard centre stage and clarifies how, according to Ricardo, the standard regulated the quantity – and hence the value – of money. The final part shows that Ricardo relied on the active management of paper money rather than on flows of bullion and commodities to produce international adjustment and guarantee the security of the monetary system.

Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the publication of On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation, this book will be of great interest to all historians of economic thought and scholars of monetary economics.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Deleplace, Ghislain

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Geldwirtschaft, Währungspolitik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

INTRODUCTION

1. Why a book on Ricardo on money?

2. An evolution in Ricardo’s theory of money

3. The content of the book: history, theory, policy

4. Two hundred years after

PART I: HISTORY

CHAPTER 1: THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

1.1 The English monetary system at the time of Ricardo

1.2 International monetary relations in Europe: London, Paris, Hamburg

1.3 From Hume to the Bullionist Controversy

1.4 The first round of the Bullionist Controversy (1797-1803)

Appendix 1: Ricardo on the bullion and foreign exchange markets

CHAPTER 2: RICARDO’S BATTLES ON CURRENCY AND BANKS

2.1 Ricardo and the Bullion Controversy (1809-1811)

2.2 Ricardo and the resumption of convertibility (1816-1823)

2.3 Conclusion: The legacy of Ricardo’s monetary battles

Appendix 2: Attacks and weapons

PART II: THEORY

CHAPTER 3: MONEY AND THE INVARIABLE STANDARD

3.1 Some definitions

3.2 Value of money, price of gold bullion, and the general price level

3.3 The standard of money and the standard of value

3.4 Conclusion

Appendix 3: An aborted attempt at the non-neutrality of money in respect to relative prices

CHAPTER 4: THE TWO CAUSES OF CHANGE IN THE VALUE OF MONEY

4.1 The direction of the causality between the quantity and the value of money

4.2 Ricardo’s distinction between "a fall in the value of money" and "a depreciation of money"

4.3 The Money-Standard Equation

4.4 Conclusion

Appendix 4: Evidence on the Money-Standard Equation: The "Draft on Peel" (1821)

CHAPTER 5: THE ADJUSTMENT TO A CHANGE IN THE VALUE OF THE STANDARD

5.1 From an ambiguity in the Bullion Essays to a clarification in Principles

5.2 The extension of the theory of rent from land to mines

5.3 The specificity of gold bullion in respect to corn

5.4 The adjustment in the gold-producing country: a new "distribution of capital"

5.5 The adjustment in the gold-importing country: minting

5.6 The effect of an increased demand for bullion by the issuing bank

5.7 Conclusion: The Money-Standard Equation and a real shock on the value of money

Appendix 5: Taxes on gold

CHAPTER 6: THE DEPRECIATION OF METALLIC MONEY

6.1 Convertibility and adjustment in the market for bullion

6.2 Price adjustment in the markets for other commodities than bullion

6.3 Debasement of the coin and depreciation of money

6.4 The instability of the double standard

Appendix 6: A letter on the double standard of money

CHAPTER 7: THE REGULATION OF THE QUANTITY OF CONVERTIBLE NOTES BY THE STANDARD

7.1 The money-standard equation and the quantity of money

7.2 The adjustment of the value of money to an increase in the "wants of commerce"

7.3 The adjustment to a discretionary increase in the convertible-note issue

7.4 A non-quantitative approach

7.5 Money without a standard

7.6 Conclusion: the specificity of the market for gold bullion

Appendix 7: The effects of a change in the money supply: real balances, rate of interest, and Say’s Law

PART III: POLICY

CHAPTER 8: THE INTERNATIONAL ADJUSTMENT TO A MONETARY SHOCK

8.1 Real par of exchange and bullion points

8.2 A two-stage international adjustment process

8.3 The redundancy of money as the sole cause of fall in the exchange rate

8.4 Price-specie flow mechanism versus active management of the currency

8.5 The Ingot Plan and the gold-exchange standard

Appendix 8: The boundaries constraining the exchange rate

CHAPTER 9: CENTRAL BANKING AND THE EUTHANASIA OF METAL CURRENCY

9.1 The public nature of paper money

9.2 The Ingot Plan

9.3 The Plan for a national bank

9.4 The management of the note issue

9.5 Increasing the security of the monetary system

9.6 An application of Ricardo’s theory of money

Appendix 9: The Ingot Plan in perspective

AFTERWORD

1. Results

2. The legacy of Ricardo’s theory of money for today

Appendix 10: Ricardo’s model of a monetary economy with a standard

Über Autor(innen)

Ghislain Deleplace is Emeritus Professor of Economics at University Paris 8 at Saint-Denis, France. His fields of research are the history of monetary thought (Steuart, Ricardo, Marx, Keynes, Sraffa), the history of the international monetary system (sixteenth century, nineteenth century), and the Post-Keynesian theory of money.