This chapter uses the classical money model introduced in Chapter 2 to explain the different views of Adam Smith and David Hume on banking and the price-specie-flow mechanism (PSFM). These differences reappeared in the debates between the Banking School and the Currency School over Peel's Bank...

This chapter considers the law of reflux and its alternative interpretations: (1) as a monetary policy rule for stabilizing the price level and (2) as rule for individual banks to follow to remain liquid. The chapter argues that Adam Smith endorsed only the second interpretation, and that the...

This chapter responds to criticisms by (Blaug, M. (1995). Why is the quantity theory the oldest surviving theory in economics? In M. Blaug (Ed.), The quantity theory of money: From Locke to Keynes and Friedman. Edward Elgar.) and (O’Brien, D.P. (1995). Long-run equilibrium and cyclical...

This chapter explores the different explanations of Ricardo and Thornton for the depreciation of sterling after convertibility of sterling into gold was suspended during the Napoleonic Wars. Ricardo held that only overissue by the Bank of England could have caused depreciation of sterling while...

This chapter discusses four areas of monetary theory on which the ideas of Smith and Hume have left their imprint: (1) the overissue of bank liabilities, (2) the price-specie-flow mechanism (PSFM), (3) the need for a lender of last resort in a competitive banking system, (4) real-bills doctrine...

Monetary-policy rules arise when the value of a medium of exchange exceeds its cost of production. Two classes of monetary rules can be identified: (1) price rules that target the value of money in terms of a real commodity, e.g., gold, or in terms of an index of prices, and (2) quantity rules...

Say's Law occupies a prominent, but equivocal, position in the history of economics, the object of repeated controversies about its meaning and significance since first propounded in the nineteenth century. This chapter proposes a unifying interpretation of Say's Law based on the idea that the...

Ralph Hawtrey, a leading economist of the interwar period, published his first work in economics, Good and Bad Trade, in 1913. The book presents the key elements of the theoretical model Hawtrey developed and refined over the next quarter century. Though he was remarkably consistent in...

This chapter examines the development of Keynes's monetary thought in the context of Britain's return to the gold standard (opposed by Keynes) in 1925 and his unsuccessful attempt to develop a theory of macroeconomic fluctuations in his Treatise on Money. Keynes, who had predicted that rejoining...

R. G. Hawtrey, like J. M. Keynes, was a Cambridge graduate in mathematics, an Apostle, influenced by the Cambridge philosopher G. E. Moore, and connected to the Bloomsbury Group. Though eventually overshadowed by Keynes, Hawtrey, after publishing Currency and Credit in 1919, was in the front...