Was the Gibson Paradox for real? A wicksellian study of the relationship between interest rates and prices

Jagjit Chadha and Morris Perlman

Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History

Abstract: We examine the relationship between prices and interest rates for seven advanced economies in the period up to 1913, emphasizing the UK. There is a significant long-runpositive relationship between prices and interest rates for the core commodity standard countries. Keynes (1930) labelled this positive relationship the Gibson Paradox. A number of theories have been put forward as possible explanations of the Paradox but they do not fit the long-run pattern of the relationship. We find that a formal model in the spirit of Wicksell (1907)and Keynes (1930) offers an explanation for the paradox: where the need to stabilize the banking sector’s reserve ratio, in the presence of an uncertain natural rate, can lead to persistent deviations of the market rate of interest from its natural level and consequently long run swings in the price level.

Keywords: Gibson’s paradox; Keynes-Wicksell; prices; interest rates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B22 E12 E31 E42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2014-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hpe and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Was the Gibson Paradox for real? A Wicksellian study of the relationship between interest rates and prices (2014)
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