Disequilibrium as the origin, originality, and challenges of Clower's microfoundations of monetary theory
Romain Plassard
The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2017, vol. 24, issue 6, 1388-1415
Abstract:
Robert W. Clower's article “A Reconsideration of the Microfoundations of Monetary Theory” (1967) deeply influenced the course of modern monetary economics. On the one hand, it questioned Don Patinkin's (1956) project to integrate monetary and Walrasian value theory. On the other hand, it was the fountainhead of the cash-in-advance models à la Robert J. Lucas (1980), one of the most widely used approaches to monetary theory since the 1980s. Despite this influence, Clower's project to integrate monetary and value theory remains an enigma. My paper intends to resolve it. This is a difficult task since Clower never completed the monetary theory outlined in his 1967 article. To overcome this difficulty, I characterise the intellectual context from which Clower's contribution emerged and have recourse to a reconstruction of his project. This reconstruction is based on the analysis of published and unpublished materials, written by Clower before and after the 1967 article. It is argued that Clower sought to elaborate a disequilibrium monetary theory whilst retaining the two pillars of Patinkin's integration, i.e., the introduction of money into utility functions and the real-balance effect. I trace the origins, account for the originality, and discuss the challenges of this project.
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)
Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09672567.2017.1385985 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
Related works:
Working Paper: Disequilibrium as the origin, originality, and challenges of Clower's microfoundations of monetary theory (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:24:y:2017:i:6:p:1388-1415
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/REJH20
DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2017.1385985
Access Statistics for this article
The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought is currently edited by José Luís Cardoso
More articles in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().