Patinkin on Irving Fisher's monetary economics

This paper examines Patinkin's analysis of Fisher's monetary economics, with regard to the integration of monetary and value theory, the origins of the Chicago school and Fisher's relationship to Cambridge monetary theory.     

The dichotomy once again

Patinkin's contribution to monetary theory is discussed with particular attention given to his ‘dichotomy argument’. It is shown that he is perfectly correct, but there is a confusion in the literature between the ‘neutrality proposition’ and the independence of equilibrium of the quantity of money. I then turn to homogeneity and its importance, and stress that the homogeneity applies to current as well as expected prices. I am rather unkind to mathematizing the double coincidence of wants argument, since it seems very obvious and the mathematics is exceptionally ugly. The paper concludes with remarks on monetary policy and the connection between the theory of money and that of information.     

Don Patinkin and the origins of postwar monetary orthodoxy

Don Patinkin's Money, Interest, and Prices (1956) set the ground rules of postwar monetary discourse, for better or worse. A close look at the intellectual origins of the book in Patinkin's own life shows it to emerge equally from the Old Chicago School of Simons/Mints/Knight and the Cowles Commission of Lange/Marschak/Haavelmo. Patinkin's conception of money as essentially an outside asset is argued to emerge from the historical context of war finance, and is contrasted with the Gurley-Shaw conception of money as a form of inside credit.     

The wage–employment relationship in Modigliani's 1944 article

Modigliani's 1944 “Econometrica” article is considered one of the most important efforts to reconcile Keynes with classical economic thinking through the wage rigidity hypothesis. The paper reconstructs the genesis of Modigliani's article and compares Modigliani's and Patinkin's interpretation of the wage–employment relationship. It also discusses Modigliani's contribution to the neoclassical synthesis, arguing that Modigliani's attention to the monetary origin of and solution to unemployment contrasts with the neoclassical synthesis neglecting of the monetary side of the system and its inclination towards fiscal policy.     

Patinkin,the Cowles Commission,and the theory of unemployment and aggregate supply

The paper provides an account of Don Patinkin's long-time search for an explanation of the notions of an aggregate demand constraint and unemployment under the assumption of a perfectly competitive goods market. It is argued that Patinkin's quest is reflected on the development of the concept of an aggregate supply function in the goods market. Patinkin's interpretation of aggregate supply and unemployment is compared to similar ideas put forward by Jacob Marschak, Trygve Haavelmo and Lawrence Klein, his former colleagues at the Cowles Commission in Chicago.     

Lange's 1938 model: dynamics and the “optimum propensity to consume”

Abstract

Oskar Lange's 1938 article “The Rate of Interest and the Optimum Propensity to Consume” is usually associated with the original IS-LM approach of the late 1930s. However, Lange's article was not only an attempt to illuminate Keynes's main innovations but the first part of a wide project that included the development of a theory of economic evolution. This paper aims at showing that Lange's article can help in illuminating critical aspects of this project: in particular, Lange's idea that a synthesis between Kaldor's and Kalecki's theories and that of Schumpeter, might have been possible and that it represented (in intentions) a “modern” and consistent reconstruction of the Marxist theory of the business cycle. Section 2 clarifies Lange's early reflection on dynamics. Section 3 centres on Lange's 1938 static model and indicates the effects of a change of saving on investment. Section 4 suggests a dynamic reconstruction from which are addressed important arguments raised by Lange in a series of papers written between 1934 and 1942.     

The origins,development, and fate of Clower's “stock-flow” general-equilibrium programme

Before becoming the hallmark of macroeconomics à la Wynne Godley, the “stock-flow” analysis was already developed in microeconomics and general-equilibrium theory. The goal was to study the formation of economic plans and the determination of market prices when individuals were supposed to consume, produce, and hold commodities. I show that since the early 1950s, Robert W. Clower used the “stock-flow” price theory to offer microfoundations to a Keynesian business cycle model. I analyse the origins of this microfoundation programme, trace its development, and discuss its fate.     

Backhouse and Boianovsky on “disequilibrium theory”. A review article of transforming modern macroeconomics. Exploring disequilibrium microfoundations, 1956–2003

Abstract

This article is an in-depth analysis of Backhouse and Boianovsky's book, Transforming Modern Macroeconomics: Exploring Disequilibrium Microfoundations, 1956–2003. I start with questioning Backhouse and Boianovsky's too broad understanding of the disequilibrium approach. Thereby they bring together theories that should be kept separate, those by Patinkin, Clower and Leijonhuvud on the one hand, and those by Barro and Grossman, Drèze and Benassy, on the other. I also substantiate my disagreement with their claim that an inner link exists between fixed price equilibrium theories and imperfect competition modelling. Finally, I put forward a few conjectures about the reason why fixed price modelling petered out.     

Fisher and Wicksell on money: A reconstructed conversation

Abstract

The paper offers a reconstruction of the ‘conversation’ between Irving Fisher and Knut Wicksell on money as shown by references they made to each other's works. The first phase corresponded largely to the period between 1897 and 1911, when they proposed different explanations of the interaction between interest and prices, and incorporated aspects of each other's approaches into their own respective frameworks. This was followed by Wicksell's extended criticism of Fisher's compensated dollar plan and his bewilderment at its apparent lack of relation with the quantity theory of money (1912–1919). Finally, especially after Wicksell's death, Fisher came to support a significant part of Wicksell's monetary policy proposals, particularly in connection with the Swedish stabilisation experiment in the early 1930s. Fisher and Wicksell were both heirs of Böhm-Bawerk's interest theory, but interpreted and criticised the Austrian from different perspectives, which helps to explain the differences in their approaches to monetary dynamics.     

Patinkin,Walras and the 'money-in-the-utility-function' tradition

This paper concentrates on Patinkin's use of Walras' model in his attempt at providing a proper theory of the price of money integrated with the theory of relative prices. Patinkin stands as the last major contributor to a Walras-Hicks-Patinkin tradition based on an attempt at introducing money into the agent's utility function. More in Hicks than in Walras' footsteps, Patinkin gives a clear priority to money as a store of value over an assumed function as a means of exchange. It is also shown how confident the profession was in the early 1950s in the ability of general equilibrium to provide theoretical foundations to the neo-classical synthesis. However, the similitudes between the technique used by Walras and Patinkin are only a smokescreen behind which very different intentions are hidden.     

Professor Fisher and the quantity theory – a significant encounter

Abstract

Irving Fisher's encounter with the Quantity Theory of Money began in the 1890s, during the debate about bimetallism, and reached its high point in 1911 with the publication of The Purchasing Power of Money. His most important refinement of the theory, derived from his recognition of bank deposits as means of exchange, was to treat their out of equilibrium recursive interaction with inflation as integral to it. This treatment underlay both his 1920s work on the business cycle as a “dance of the dollar” and his advocacy of subjecting monetary policy to a legislated price stability rule, initially to be based on his “compensated dollar” scheme. Fisher's failure to recognise the onset of the Great Depression even as it was happening was directly related to his faith in the quantity theory's seeming implication that price level stability in and of itself guaranteed the continuation of prosperity, while his subsequent work on the debt deflation theory of great depressions initially failed to repair the damage that this failure did to his reputation, and to that of the quantity theory. In the 1930s Fisher nevertheless remained an active supporter of various schemes to reflate and then stabilise the price level. His subsequent influence on the quantity theory based Monetarist counter-revolution that began in the 1950s lay, directly, in its deployment of his analysis of expected inflation on nominal interest rates, and, indirectly, in its espousal of the case for subjecting monetary policy to a legislated rule.     

Public credit and liquidity in James Steuart's Principles

Abstract

The aim of this article is to shed new light on the monetary and financial theory of James Steuart (1767) through his examination of the speculative bubbles of 1720: that is, the John Law System in France and the South Sea Bubble in England. In contrast to most contemporary writers – particularly David Hume and Adam Smith – Steuart had a balanced opinion about these two financial experiments. On the one hand, Steuart considered them worthwhile, since they were attempts at public debt restructuring by reducing its expense and increasing its liquidity. Moreover, according to Steuart, a well-managed public debt favours the liquidity of both banks and the financial market. These worked together for the growth of wealth. However, on the other hand, Steuart claimed that the failure of these experiments was due to: (i) a poor management of money; (ii) a violation of credit rules and its corollary, the weakness of banks; (iii) the adoption of contestable dividend and financial information policy. This article presents Steuart's proposals for creating the liquidity of both banks and the financial market via a well-managed public debt.     

The value and security of money. Metallic and fiduciary media in Ferdinando Galiani's Della moneta

This paper proposes a new interpretative framework for Galiani's monetary theory. The main argument is that, by adopting “the methodology of successive approximations” (correctly attributed to him by Luigi Einaudi), Galiani investigated the theoretical foundations of the two archetypal moneys: metallic money and paper money. On these foundations, he developed the model of a complex monetary economy based on the coexistence of a metallic and a fiduciary circulation. The paper also illustrates how the experience of the “public banks” of Naples inspired his analysis, thus shedding new light on the theoretical and institutional richness of his monetary thought.     

Capital Flows to Latin America (2003–17): A Critical Survey from Prebisch’s Business Cycle Theory

ABSTRACT

The economic literature on capital flows to developing countries has shared two important commonalities since the 1990s. Published works (whether they focus on the external situation or stress the domestic determinants of capital flows) tend to assume a beneficial effect of capital inflows, which leads to an improvement of peripheral institutions, whose deficiencies are ostensibly the main cause of economic turmoil and/or failure in attracting capital flows, in continuity with New Institutional Economics. In doing so, mainstream economists deliberately overlook the asymmetric characteristics of the international monetary system and the persisting hegemony of dollar. Raul Prebisch’s pioneering work on business cycles in Latin America provide an alternative view, one capable of amending the existing mainstream literature. On the one hand, Prebisch stressed the destabilizing role of capital inflows on Latin American economies, particularly short-term speculative capital. On the other hand, Prebisch designed a set of counter cyclical monetary policies in order to contrast capital volatility, particularly during downturns. An analysis of stylized facts shows that, when correctly updated, Prebisch’s theory has remarkable explanatory potential when applied to Latin America’s current economic and financial situation.     

Patinkin as a reader of Keynes’ General Theory: Are wage cuts a good remedy to unemployment?1

Abstract

This paper analyses Patinkin's appraisal of Keynes’ concept of involuntary unemployment while focusing on his reading of the General Theory Chapter 19. On several critical issues, Patinkin departs from Keynes’ original matters of concerns. He leans against an individual criterion for unemployment and implicitly endorses Wicksell's understanding of voluntary unemployment as chosen leisure. His appraisal of involuntary unemployment as a disequilibrium phenomenon ultimately relies on nominal rigidities and assumes the existence of a competitive adjustment process. On all these three critical points, Patinkin departs from Keynes but also initiates the contemporary New Keynesian programme that went even further from Keynes.     

Silvio Gesell: “A strange,unduly neglected” monetary theorist

Abstract

In recent years negative nominal interest rates came to the attention of a wider audience as one instrument to overcome the lower zero bound to conventional monetary policy. Modern proponents trace the origin of the proposal back to Silvio Gesell, a largely forgotten German autodidactic scholar of the interwar period, whose work provides valuable insight into heterodox late nineteenth- and twentieth-century economic thinking. Against this backdrop, the present article provides a comprehensive review of Gesell’s life and social economy, firmly linking him to German anarchism of the interwar period. It suggests that Gesell not only provided a monetary theory of interest, but put forward an independent monetary theory of economic crisis that is essential in understanding the historical origins of depreciative currency proposals. Moreover, the article maintains that Gesell’s monetary theory of interest can be seen as the missing link between heterodox economics, The General Theory, and anarchist economic theory.     

Bentham and Owen on entrepreneurship and social reform

Abstract

Jeremy Bentham invested an important amount of money in New Lanark's cotton mills, which at that time were run by Robert Owen. However, apparently Bentham never took a serious interest in the organisation of such a successful entrepreneurship and new model society, although it seemed to fit in with Bentham's ideas of the entrepreneur (‘projector’) and also with Bentham's ideas on social reform, seeking the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This article explains how Bentham's share in New Lanark came about. It tries to ascertain whether the New Lanark experiment and Owen's ideas fit Bentham's managerial theory and ideas on social reform so as to understand why Bentham did not pay more attention to Robert Owen's practice.     

Enrico Barone's ‘Ministry of Production’: Content and Context

Abstract

Enrico Barone's famous article on economic planning, ‘Il Ministro della Produzione nello Stato Collettivista’ (‘The Ministry of Production in the Collectivist State’), which showed the theoretical possibility of an economically efficient collectivist planned economy, was published in Giornale degli Economisti in 1908. Barone's article has been widely cited, particularly in the comparative economic systems literature, but it has not been very widely read or analysed in recent years, and there is not much literature that places Barone's ‘Ministry’ model in the context of his other works or in its historical, social, or ideological context. The aims of this article are: (a) to analyse and clarify Barone's model in depth; (b) to place it in the context of Barone's other writings and the literature on the subject; and (c) to examine the apparent contradiction between Barone's hostility to socialism and his attempt to formulate the pure theory of the collectivist economy.     

The Keynesian Features of Graziani's Monetary Theory of Production and Some Unresolved Issues

Abstract

The aim of this article is twofold. First, it seeks to verify the elements of affinity between Graziani's approach to the Monetary Theory of Production and Keynes’ Treatise on Money and his General Theory. It is shown that two important theoretical elements, from the Treatise on Money, enter Graziani's basic schema, namely the view of endogenous money supply and the distribution process. At the same time, uncertainty and aggregate demand—conceived as a crucial variable in the General Theory—can play a significant role in the basic schema of the Monetary Theory of Production. Second, the article sets out a critical reconstruction of Graziani's basic schema emphasising the existence of ‘open issues’– such as bank behaviour and the ‘paradox of profits’—relating to internal and external inconsistencies.