The idea that speculation exacerbates commodity and stock price volatility dates back at least from the second half of the nineteenth century when an extensive literature emerged to which Marshall contributed. The essence of his arguments, originally applied to commodities and subsequently...

<title>Abstract</title>This paper argues against the distance which has been growing between economic history and history of economic thought (HET). Two examples, drawn from the history of monetary theory, are provided of how neglecting the historical background may lead to erroneous interpretations and...

<title>Abstract</title> We review Keynes's constant concern with commodity prices, both as speculator and as theorist, arguing that it was never divorced from his view on market instability. We also look at Kahn's contribution on buffer stocks, which brought to fruition the original intuition by Keynes,...

[fre] La question posée est de savoir si une marchandise peut être choisie arbitrairement comme étalon monétaire. L'analyse distingue la fonction de l'étalon monétaire et la fonction du numéraire. Ricardo a soulevé la question des caractéristiques que doit avoir la marchandise choisie...

In August 2011 Edward Fullbrook, the editor of the Real World Economics Review and the driving force behind the World Economics Association (WEA), asked the three of us to take on editorial roles in the newly established philosophy, methodology and history of thought journal of the association....