[...] It would not be fair to Skidelsky to pile up a longer list of infelicities of this sort. He is primarily an historian who has had to learn economics more or less from scratch in order to write a biography of a great economist who was much else besides. It is unreasonable to expect him to...

This paper surveys the literature of the Bullionist controversy which dominated the development of Classical monetary economics between 1797 and the early 1820s. It highlights the contributions of Henry Thornton to the early phase of the debate, particularly his refutation of the Real Bill...

Today' standard model of monetary policy has aggregate demand responding directly to an interest rate under the central bank's control, and ignores the role played by the quantity of money in the transmission mechanism. Even though monetary policy is usually aimed at controlling price level...

Recent financial instability has called into question the sufficiency of low inflation as a goal for monetary policy. This paper discusses interwar literature bearing on this question. It begins with theories of the cycle based on the quantity theory, and their policy prescription of price...

This paper traces the evolution of debate about the question of Rules versus Discretion in monetary policy from about 1800 until the mid 1930s. Particular attention is paid to long-versus-short-run issues, notably with respect to the 1844 Bank Charter Act, and the Bagehot Principle, as well as...

This review argues that Allan Meltzer's account of the Fed. between 1913-1951 complements Friedman and Schwartz's in their Monetary History. Meltzer emphasises policy making within the System, rather than the evolution of the money supply and its effects on the economy. He stresses the...

This paper examines Robert E. Lucas's views on the relationship of macroeconomics to real world economic phenomena, and on Keynes's place in its history, suggesting that these stem from a particular and debatable understanding of how the subdiscipline has evolved. It considers some implications...

Most leading economics departments no longer teach the History of Economic Thought. Prominent macroeconomists nevertheless frequently deploy inaccurate accounts of the earlier development of ideas as rhetorical devices. These same economists have, however, also taught us that an understanding of...

Henry Thornton and Walter Bagehot were both advocates of discretionary monetary policy, especially as regards the Bank of England's role as a lender of last resort, but they differed on many details of the case. Where Bagehot thought that the Bank's central position in the financial system was...

[Introductory Note by David Laidler (University of Western Ontario) and Roger Sandilands (University of Strathclyde) ...] The Memorandum which this note introduces was completed by three young members of the Harvard economics department sometime in January 1932 Two of them, Lauchlin Currie and...