Cambridge And The Monetary Theory Of Production

Less than fifty years after the publication of Marshall's Principles Cambridge once again set economics on a new path with the publication of Keynes's General Theory. This book examines the developments in Cambridge monetary and trade cycle theory that were moving it forwards but were also sowing the seeds for the collapse of the Marshallian neoclassical framework. The analysis shows how Cambridge economists such as Keynes, Robertson, Lavington and Hawtrey had built on the foundations of Marshall and Pigou to produce theories of adaptive behaviour which acknowledged that the invisible hand could fail in the short run. This established a conflict with the long run theory of market clearing equilibrium which, though it could be ignored at first, had finally to be resolved.

In mainstream economic theory money functions as an instrument for the circulation of commodities or for keeping a stock of liquid wealth. In neither case is it considered fundamental to the production of goods or the distribution of income. Augusto Graziani challenges traditional theories of monetary production, arguing that a modern economy based on credit cannot be understood without a focus on the administration of credit flows. He argues that market asset configuration depends not upon consumer preferences and available technologies but on how money and credit are managed. A strong exponent of the circulation theory of monetary production, Graziani presents an original and perhaps controversial argument that will stimulate debate on the topic.

This volume examines the theory of monetary circulation and applies it to several modern issues including unemployment, inflation, distribution and economic policies. It will provide a valuable contribution to the field of monetary economics, and in particular, its development of non-neoclassical approaches to monetary economics.

The primary aim of the book is to provide a critical evaluation of the origin and development of the Cambridge saving-investment analysis. This work disentangles painstakingly from a maze of sometimes contradictory, obscure and often neglected contributions, the line which leads from Marshall's interest theory to Keynes's income adjustment process. In particular, it charts, for the first time, the various steps taken by this line of inquiry in the writings of Pigou, Hawtrey, Robertson, Lavington and Keynes.

The novel feature of this study is the application of Keynes' principle of effective demand to demonstrate the existence of a long-run unemployment equilibrium without the assumption of rigid wages.

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.