Some British Nineteenth Century Controversies In Monetary Theory

Britain suspended convertibility during the Napoleonic wars. During that period, until 1821, money in England was paper, unbacked by gold. The restoration of convertibility was followed by a stagnant period in British development, with a crisis in 1825 and a reform in 1844 called the Bank Charter Act.

This post recalls some debates in monetary theory among British political economists while these events were occurring. (I don't consider myself expert on monetary theory during the Classical period.) Table 1 shows some schools of thought in monetary theory. The term schools is traditional with respect to the currency and banking schools, but should not be interpreted too strongly for any groups in the table. These schools, unlike, say, the Physiocrats, do not have a recognized leader, followers, popularizers, etc. Rather, they are more like the Mercantilists, a diverse set of pamphleteers and politicians grouped together by later writers.

Table 1: Some "Schools" and Example Members

Years	Contending Schools
1797-1821	Bullionists Henry Thornton David Ricardo	Anti-Bullionists Robert Torrens Robert Malthus
1825-1844	Currency School Robert Torrens Samuel Jones Lloyd Mountifort Longfield	Banking School Thomas Tooke John Stuart Mill
2nd Half of the 20th Century	Quantity Theory Milton Friedman	Endogenous Money Nicholas Kaldor

In each period shown in the table, I have listed two schools. Economists in the first school in each row argued that the money supply was exogenous and that the price level varied with amount of money issued by central bank. Economists in the second school in each row argued that the money supply was endogenous, that is was not capable of being controlled by the central bank, and that it varied with demand for it. The details of these arguments varied among these and other economists.

The last row suggests that these arguments are still current. In fact, advocates of Modern Monetary Theory currently argue that the money supply is endogenous.