There has been a significant degree of financial restructuring over the last few decades, which has prompted a rethinking of the first principles of monetary economics. The focus here is on how four specifications of these principles address such issues as the need for central banks and the...

J. M. Keynes discussed the ideas of The General Theory at length with R. G. Hawtrey and D. H. Robertson. In their correspon dence, the notion of idle (or inactive) balances figures prominently. Each had a different understanding of what idle balances were and wh at their significance was. This...