Ricardo on Money: Ahead of His Time or Unorthodox?

523 Pages·2017·5.67 MB·English

by  Ghislain Deleplace

Ricardo on Money
Despite his achievements, David Ricardo’s views on money have often been
misunderstood and underappreciated. His advanced ideas had to wait until the
twentieth century to be applied, and most historians of economic thought
continue to consider him as an obsolete orthodox. The last book devoted in
tribute to Ricardo as a monetary economist was published more than 25 years
ago.
Ricardo on Money encompasses the whole of Ricardo’s writings on currency,
whether in print, unpublished notes, correspondence, or reported parliamentary
speeches and evidence. The aim of the book is at rehabilitating Ricardo as an
unorthodox theorist on money and suggesting his relevance for modern analysis.
It is divided into three parts: history, theory and policy. The first describes the
factual and intellectual context of Ricardo’s monetary writings. The second part
puts the concept of standard centre stage and clarifies how, according to Ricardo,
the standard regulated the quantity – and hence the value – of money. The final
part shows that Ricardo relied on the active management of paper money rather
than on flows of bullion and commodities to produce international adjustment
and guarantee the security of the monetary system.
Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the publication of On the
Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation, this book will be of great interest
to all historians of economic thought and scholars of monetary economics.
Ghislain Deleplace is Emeritus Professor of Economics at University Paris 8 at
Saint-Denis, France. His fields of research are the history of monetary thought
(Steuart, Ricardo, Marx, Keynes, Sraffa), the history of the international monetary
system (sixteenth century, nineteenth century), and the post-Keynesian theory of
money.
Routledge Studies in the History of Economics For a full list of
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Edited by Alain Alcouffe, Monika Poettinger and Bertram Schefold
192 Economics, Ethics, and Ancient Thought Towards a Virtuous Public
Policy Donald G. Richards
193 Ricardo on Money
A Reappraisal
Ghislain Deleplace
Ricardo on Money
A Reappraisal
Ghislain Deleplace
First published 2017
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Ghislain Deleplace
The right of Ghislain Deleplace to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Deleplace, Ghislain, author.
Title: Ricardo on money : a reappraisal / Ghislain Deleplace.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016048743| ISBN 9780415661584 (hardback) ISBN 9781315207872 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH:
Ricardo, David, 1772-1823. | Money. | Monetary policy.
Classification: LCC HB103.R5 D45 2017 | DDC 332.401--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016048743
ISBN: 978-0-41566158-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-31520787-2 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman
by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Brixham, UK
To the memory of Charles (1921–2012) and
Simonne (1921–2015) Deleplace
To Nathalie, Aurélien, Raphaël
Ricardo’s Memorial in Hardenhuish churchyard