Origins and Development of The Quantity Theory
The quantity theory descends from Copernicus, followers of the School of Salamanca, Jean Bodin, and various others who noted the increase in prices following the import of gold and silver, used in the coinage of money, from the New World. The “equation of exchange” relating the supply of money to the value of money transactions was stated by John Stuart Mill who expanded on the ideas of David Hume. The quantity theory was developed by Simon Newcomb, Alfred de Foville, Irving Fisher, and Ludwig von Mises in the latter 19th and early 20th century, while it had been argued against by Karl Marx. The theory was influentially restated by Milton Friedman in response to Keynesianism.
Academic discussion remains over the degree to which different figures developed the theory. For instance, Bieda argues that Copernicus's observation
Money can lose its value through excessive abundance, if so much silver is coined as to heighten people's demand for silver bullion. For in this way, the coinage's estimation vanishes when it cannot buy as much silver as the money itself contains . The solution is to mint no more coinage until it recovers its par value.
amounts to a statement of the theory, while other economic historians date the discovery later, to figures such as Jean Bodin, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill.
Historically, the main rival of the quantity theory was the real bills doctrine, which says that the issue of money does not raise prices, as long as the new money is issued in exchange for assets of sufficient value.
Read more about this topic: Quantity Theory Of Money
Famous quotes containing the words origins and, origins, development, quantity and/or theory:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“I hope I may claim in the present work to have made it probable that the laws of arithmetic are analytic judgments and consequently a priori. Arithmetic thus becomes simply a development of logic, and every proposition of arithmetic a law of logic, albeit a derivative one. To apply arithmetic in the physical sciences is to bring logic to bear on observed facts; calculation becomes deduction.”
—Gottlob Frege (1848–1925)
“A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality. The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy ... is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“In the theory of gender I began from zero. There is no masculine power or privilege I did not covet. But slowly, step by step, decade by decade, I was forced to acknowledge that even a woman of abnormal will cannot escape her hormonal identity.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)