Monetary Theory Before Adam Smith

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This volume contains thirty-seven contributions from the most significant early developers of monetary economics. Starting with Aristotle, the collection tracks the development of the modern theory of money through the ages by thinkers like Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Jean Buridan, Martin de Azpilcueta, John Locke, Richard Cantillon, David Hume, and A.R.J Turgot.

This book provides a comprehensive survey of the major developments in monetary theory and policy from David Hume and Adam Smith to Walter Bagehot and Knut Wicksell. In particular, it seeks to explain why it took so long for a theory of central banking to penetrate mainstream thought. The book investigates how major monetary theorists understood the roles of the invisible and visible hands in money, credit and banking; what they thought about rules and discretion and the role played by commodity-money in their conceptualizations; whether or not they distinguished between the two different roles carried out via the financial system - making payments efficiently within the exchange process and facilitating intermediation in the capital market; how they perceived the influence of the monetary system on macroeconomic aggregates such as the price level, output and accumulation of wealth; and finally, what they thought about monetary policy.

This book presents an alternative approach to monetary theory that differs from the General Theory of Keynes, the Monetarism of Friedman, and the New Classicism of Lucas. Particular attention is given to the work of Hawtrey and his analysis of financial crises and his explanation of the Great Depression. The unduly neglected monetary theory of Hawtrey is examined in the context of his contemporaries Keynes and Hayek and the subsequent contributions of Friedman and of the Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments. Studies in the History of Monetary Theory aims to highlight the misunderstandings of the quantity theory and the price-specie-flow mechanism and to explain their unfortunate consequences for the subsequent development of monetary theory. The book is relevant to researchers, students, and policymakers interested in the history of economic thought, monetary theory, and monetary policy.

Classical Versus Neoclassical Monetary Theories, completed just before Professor Will E. Mason's untimely death, places recent and mid-20th century monetary theory in a larger historical context, while examining the relevance of contemporary questions in monetary policy. The first half of the volume analyzes the development of the methodological and conceptual foundations of monetary theory, up to and including contemporary mainstream views; the second half addresses more policy-oriented monetary questions. Emphasis is placed on the dichotomy of monetary and value theory, the Walrasian general equilibrium paradigm, the resolution of the `Patinkin controversy', the Federal Reserve System's failed experiment with `pure monetarism', and the misplacement of the free market in the `Chicago paradox'. Classical Versus Neoclassical Monetary Theories will be of interest both to historians of economic thought and monetary and macro economists, as well as to many well-informed followers and fashioners of monetary policy.

The Sourcebook is a thematically unified collection of seminal texts in the history of economics on the topic of money and exchange relations (cambium)_its nature, purpose, value, and relationship to justice and morality in financial transactions_within the tradition of late-scholastic commercial ethics.