Abstract:
Contrary to a wide-spread opinion, it was not Ricardo who developed the gold-points theory, but Thornton. Thornton did it in complement of its lender in last resort theory to justify the suspension of payments and to explain the high price of bullion. Ricardo rejected the Thornton's gold points mechanism, and set Hume's price-specie-flow mechanism. The stake for Ricardo was to show that only an excessive quantity of money can involve a high price of bullin. We analyze his arguments
JEL-codes:B1E4F3 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Date: 2008