Irving Fisher and Price‐Level Targeting in Austria: Was Silver the Answer?

Richard Burdekin, Kris James Mitchener and Marc D. Weidenmier

Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 2012, vol. 44, issue 4, 733-750

Abstract: The question of price level versus inflation targeting remains controversial. Disagreement concerns not so much the desirability of price stability but rather the means of achieving it. Irving Fisher argued for a commodity dollar standard where the purchasing power of money was fixed by indexing it to a basket of commodities. We show that movements in the price of silver closely track the movements in overall prices during the classical gold standard era. The one‐to‐one relationship between paper and silver bonds suggests that a simple “silver rule” could have sufficed to fix the purchasing power of money.

Date: 2012
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https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2012.00508.x

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Journal Article: Irving Fisher and Price-Level Targeting in Austria: Was Silver the Answer? (2012)
Working Paper: Irving Fisher and Price-Level Targeting in Austria: Was Silver the Answer? (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:jmoncb:v:44:y:2012:i:4:p:733-750

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