Readings in Money and Banking: Selected and AdaptedPhillips, Chester Arthur
General
Readings in Money and Banking: Selected and Adapted
Phillips, Chester Arthur
Banks and banking; Banks and banking -- United States; Money
If it be objected that this _assumes_ that with the doubling in _M_ and
_M'_ there would be also a doubling of prices, we may meet the objection
by putting the argument in a slightly different form. Suppose, for a
moment, that a doubling in the currency in circulation should not at
once raise prices, but should halve the velocities instead; such a
result would evidently upset for each individual the adjustment which he
had made of cash on hand. Prices being unchanged, he now has double the
amount of money and deposits which his convenience had taught him to
keep on hand. He will then try to get rid of the surplus money and
deposits by buying goods. But as somebody else must be found to take the
money off his hands, its mere transfer will not diminish the amount in
the community. It will simply increase somebody else's surplus.
Everybody has money on his hands beyond what experience and convenience
have shown to be necessary. Everybody will want to exchange this
relatively useless extra money for goods, and the desire so to do must
surely drive up the price of goods. No one can deny that the effect of
every one's desiring to spend more money will be to raise prices.
Obviously this tendency will continue until there is found another
adjustment of quantities to expenditures, and the _V_'s are the same as
originally. That is, if there is no change in the quantities sold (the
_Q_'s), the only possible effect of doubling _M_ and _M'_ will be a
doubling of the _p_'s; for we have just seen that the _V_'s cannot be
permanently reduced without causing people to have surplus money and
deposits, and there cannot be surplus money and deposits without a
desire to spend it, and there cannot be a desire to spend it without a
rise in prices. In short, the only way to get rid of a plethora of money
is to raise prices to correspond.
So far as the surplus deposits are concerned, there might seem to be a
way of getting rid of them by cancelling bank loans, but this would
reduce the normal ratio which _M'_ bears to _M_, which we have seen
tends to be maintained.
We come back to the conclusion that the velocity of circulation either
of money or deposits is independent of the quantity of money or of
deposits. No reason has been, or, so far as is apparent, can be
assigned, to show why the velocity of circulation of money, or deposits,
should be different, when the quantity of money, or deposits, is great,
from what it is when the quantity is small.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account