The Credit Theory Of Money

In 1913 and 1914, A. Mitchell Innes published a pair of articles that stand as two of the best pieces written in the twentieth century on the nature of money. Only recently rediscovered, these articles are reprinted and analyzed here for the first time.

"[What is Money? and The Credit Theory of Money is] the best pair of articles on the nature of money written in the twentieth century." -L. Randall Wray, professor of Economics, Bard College (2004) The Credit Theory of Money (1914) is one of two important articles written by British economist Alfred Mitchell-Innes about money and credit. Together with Mitchell-Innes' other article, What is Money? (also available from Cosimo Classics), it influenced Modern Monetary Theory, which states that governments can print as much money as they need without having to borrow or tax to finance spending. The Credit Theory of Money is essential reading for students of monetary theories and economic history.

Originally published in 1940, this book traces the development of theories concerning currency and credit from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. It provides a comprehensive account of the political and economic conditions in which the theories and controversies arose, with the result that the work has become a classic in its field.

Money is a legal institution with principal economic and sociological consequences. Money is a debt, because that is how it is conceptualised and comes into existence: as circulating credit – if viewed from the creditor’s perspective – or, from the debtor’s viewpoint, as debt. This book presents a legal theory of money, based on the concept of dematerialised property. It describes the money creation or money supply process for cash and for bank money, and looks at modern forms of money, such as cryptocurrencies. It also shows why mainstream economics presupposes, but avoids an analysis of, money by effectively eliminating money from the microeconomic market model and declaring it as merely a neutral medium of exchange and unit of account. The book explains that money rather brings about and influences substantially the exchange or transaction it is supposed to facilitate only as a neutral medium. As the most liquid of all assets, money enables financialisation, monetisation and commodification in the economy. The central role of the banks in the money creation process and in the economy, and their strengthened position after the bank rescue measures in the wake of the financial crisis 2008-9 are also discussed. Providing a rigorous analysis of the most salient legal issues regarding money, this book will appeal to legal theorists, economists and anyone working in commercial or banking law.

This book provides a comprehensive re-working of the basic principles of monetary macroeconomics in an alternative monetary model (AMM) of economic growth, the business cycle, inflation and income distribution. These principles differ considerably from those advanced in the standard macroeconomics literature and in textbooks. However, the latter have been demonstrably unsuccessful in the promotion of usable macroeconomic policy advice for the past several years, actually decades. A different approach is needed. In particular, the new approach takes seriously the vital role of credit creation and endogenous money in capitalism. It does not imagine that all of the difficult questions of economic policy-making may be resolved within a paradigm that conceptualizes economic activity as merely a question of barter exchange. The result is a blueprint for a set of growth-friendly macroeconomic policies which will promote full employment, financial stability and higher real wages – essentially for the benefit of the long-suffering middle and working classes rather for the chamber of commerce and financial interests.

We develop a theory of money and credit as competing payment instruments, then put it to work in applications. Buyers can use cash or credit, with the former (latter) subject to the inflation tax (transaction costs). Frictions that make the choice of payment method interesting also imply equilibrium price dispersion. We deliver closed-form solutions for money demand. We then show the model can simultaneously account for the price-change facts, cash-credit shares in micro payment data, and money-interest correlations in macro data. We analyze the effects of inflation on welfare, price dispersion and markups. We also describe nonstationary equilibria as self-fulfilling prophecies, which is standard, except here it entails dynamics in the price distribution.