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2024 | Buch

Introduction Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

National and International Monetary Payments

From Smith to Keynes and Schmitt

verfasst von: Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book demonstrates the relevance of the historical perspective with respect to national and international payment systems. Its analysis of national and international payments develops along a dialectical path that starts with the work of the Classics (thesis), undergoes a radical turn with the advent of the neoclassical school (antithesis), and reaches the modern theory of emissions passing through Keynes’s contribution (synthesis). That the history of economic thought occupies a legitimate place in the field of historical studies is beyond dispute. What may be less well understood is that it can serve purposes beyond those of the academic community of historians.

This book critically investigates the contributions of the greatest economists of the past to provide insights into the pathologies of today’s systems of national and international payments and into the reforms that are needed to correct them. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in economicpolicy and the history of economic thought.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
The aim of this book is to provide an updated analysis of the way money and monetary payments have been considered by the main contributors to the history of economic thought: from the Classics to the Neoclassics, from John Maynard Keynes to Bernard Schmitt. Other authors are taken into consideration insofar as they provide useful insights for the building of a macroeconomic theory that can explain the nature of bank money and the systems of national and international payments. Even though our concerns are clearly circumscribed to the field of monetary macroeconomics, the reader will find that the implications of our analysis encompass the entire field of macroeconomic theory.
Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini

National Payments

Frontmatter
Chapter 2. Nominal and Real Money, General Equivalent and Value
Abstract
Classical economists, from Smith to Ricardo, from Say to Marx, have the merit to have inquired about the nature of money and its link to value. Aware that money is a ‘vehicle’ which conveys produced goods from hand to hand, the classics paved the way for a novel conception of money as a nominal means rather than an object of payment. This chapter starts with the classical distinction between nominal and real money and delves into the search for the absolute measure of value carried out by Ricardo and Marx. Emphasis is placed on the role of labour in the classical theory of value. All this provides for founding elements of a contemporary study of national monetary phenomena.
Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini
Chapter 3. From Walras’s Numéraire to the Quantity Theory of Money
Abstract
The neoclassical theory can be conceived of as the antithesis of the classical theory. Production loses its central role in the creation of value, which allegedly arises within relative exchange. It is through exchange, indeed, that price determination is thought to take place. Yet, this chapter suggests a logical proof that the general equilibrium system originally proposed by Walras is undetermined. This should incite economists to reconsider the role of exchange as the source of economic value. The chapter thus deals with the neoclassical understanding of money inserted in general equilibrium analysis. Despite the general belief that money is nothing but an object of payment, it is argued that Walras’s concept of numéraire as general equivalent acquires its full significance when it is identified with nominal money.
Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini
Chapter 4. Keynes on Bank Money and the ‘Monetary Theory of Production’
Abstract
Keynes devoted most of his intellectual efforts to the development of a theory that encompasses both money and production as the underpinnings of the economic realm. This chapter singles out Keynes’s major discoveries in this regard, emphasizing their importance to understanding the workings of any monetary economy of production. Keynes’s identities are revisited, stressing the logical relationships between real output and nominal income as well as between production and consumption. The originality of the British economist appears to be lying most and foremost in the concept of wage-unit as the objective (numerical) measure of economic value, clearing the way for a fundamental understanding of national payments both in theory and in practice.
Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini
Chapter 5. The Theory of Monetary and Real Emissions
Abstract
The teachings of the great economists of the past have a direct influence on the recent theory of monetary emissions, which draws from the theoretical developments of the classics, the neoclassics, and Keynes. It is also a theory with its own internal consistency, reason for which it stands as a new theoretical tool through which economic phenomena can be observed. This chapter deals with the study of national economics through new lenses. Issued as a nominal means of payment, money acquires a positive purchasing power through production and is thus transformed into real money. Consumption, on the other hand, implies the expenditure of a purchasing power, which is thus destroyed to the extent that its expenditure covers the costs of purchased output. New light is shed on the payment of wages and the formation of profit.
Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini

International Payments

Frontmatter
Chapter 6. The Classics’ View of International Transactions
Abstract
Classical economists are renowned for their contributions to the various fields of international economics, from foreign trade to international monetary payments. In this regard, Smith and Ricardo were among the greatest authors, not just for their theories of absolute and comparative advantages, but for the effort they made to explain the existence of absolute value when it comes to imports and exports. This chapter unfolds this issue and examines the classical conception of national currencies as a first step towards the contemporary refusal of the physical conception of the monetary means used in international transactions. It is indeed in Ricardo’s monetary writings that a full-fledged investigation of gold flows is to be found. It is from them that new insights into international monetary payments can be sought for.
Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini
Chapter 7. Neoclassical and Keynesian Approaches to International Transactions
Abstract
The neoclassical approach to international payments is based on the interchangeability of national currencies, as if they were perfect, homogeneous objects of trade. In this context, the relative price of currencies is thought to be the result of the adjustment between the demand for money and money’s supply. This chapter develops a critical survey of the traditional analysis of the sources that lead to exchange rate fluctuations, from trade balances to capital transactions, from economic “fundamentals”—inflation, deflation, and interest rates—to speculation in the euro-dollar or xeno-currency market. The chapter focuses on the role of speculation in exchange rate volatility and delves into the concept of monetary integration as the way to reduce such fluctuations. An assessment is made of Mundell’s Optimum Currency Areas (OCAs), leading to the new proposal for Clearing Integrated Monetary Areas (CIMAs), of which regional monetary payment clearing would be the layer.
Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini
Chapter 8. Keynes’s Analysis of External Payments and the Plans for a World Monetary Reform
Abstract
Keynes’s interest in international payments goes back at least to the late 1910s, when he dealt with the reparations of the First World War, and was later fed by the debates with Ohlin and Rueff. Keynes’s contribution to the field of international economics was certainly original insofar as it suggested, for the first time in a systematic way, the creation of an international currency as a means of payments. This chapter carries out a critical reappraisal of these authors’ contributions, stressing the need for an international monetary intermediary and multilateral clearing as a mechanism enabling for the real payment of international transactions. The chapter also provides a critical study of the plans of international monetary reform before and after Bretton Woods, from Schumacher’s to Bernstein’s, from Triffin’s to Stamp’s.
Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini
Chapter 9. The Latest Macroeconomic Analysis of International Payments
Abstract
International economics theories, from the classical to the present ones, are an invaluable source of clues to find the missing pieces required for a full comprehension of international monetary disorders, clearly manifest in today’s world. All of them contribute to the development of the latest macroeconomic analysis of international payments. Dipping into Triffin’s and Rueff’s contributions, this chapter starts with an assessment of the shortcomings of the gold-exchange standard regime adopted following the Bretton Woods agreements. The chapter then deals with the pathology of the present system of international payments, delving into cross-border payments as a cause of inflation, the double charge of external debt servicing and the formation of countries’ sovereign debt. The chapter ends with Schmitt’s proposals for the reform of the international monetary system.
Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini
Chapter 10. Conclusion
Abstract
Compared to other fields, economics is still a very young science. Merely two hundred and sixty-seven years have passed since the publication, as encyclopaedia papers, of Quesnay’s work. If economic analysis pertains to the realm of macroeconomics, it is not utopian to believe that the human can discover the laws of a system that itself has created. Classical economists and Keynes set out to unveil these structural laws, whose nature is logical-conceptual. The history of economic thought can contribute to the development of economic analysis by emphasizing the logical thread linking the conceptual elaborations of the authors whose ideas have marked the origin and the evolution of economics. At the same time, the recent discoveries by Schmitt's approach to economics provide the key to a new interpretation of the contributions of the past.
Andrea Carrera, Alvaro Cencini
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
National and International Monetary Payments
verfasst von
Andrea Carrera
Alvaro Cencini
Copyright-Jahr
2024
Electronic ISBN
978-3-031-51737-2
Print ISBN
978-3-031-51736-5
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51737-2