The problem of the value of money

AbstractIn the history of economic thought, monetary theories in the Germanspeaking world of the early modern era are considered backward compared to the approaches in other European countries. This backwardness can be illustrated by two authors from the mid-18th century who were not only contemporaries but also successively in the service of Frederick II (“the Great”) of Prussia. The first is Johann Philipp Graumann, one of the 'projectors' of the 18th century. As master of the mints in Prussia, he developed a coin project, where he tried to implement a new monetary standard to promote trade, generate seigniorage income and implement the Prussian coins as a kind of a reserve currency. In his writings, he developed a typical mercantilistic monetary theory with a clear understanding of the mechanism in the balance of payments. But even when he tried to include credit instruments, he did not take banks or broader financial markets into account. The second thinker is Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi, who took the opposite position concerning the coin project as well as in his theory. He defended a strictly metalistic monetary approach where the value of money is only based on the metal's value. While Graumann rejected the English coin system, Justi recommended its laws for countries without their own mines, because the sovereign should not misuse his right of coinage. For him, the monetary system had tobe reliable and stable to serve trade and economic development.

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Value of money

Notes and Queries ◽

10.1093/nq/s3-v.118.282-c ◽

1864 ◽

Vol s3-V (118) ◽

pp. 282-282

Author(s):

Querist

Keyword(s):

Value Of Money

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The Measure of the Value of Money According to European Economists

Journal of Political Economy ◽

10.1086/250556 ◽

1898 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 42-77

Author(s):

G. M. Fiamingo

Keyword(s):

Value Of Money

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Some Remarks on the Report by the Commissioners appointed to investigate into the Recent Changes in the Relative Values of the Precious Metals

Transactions of the Actuarial Society of Edinburgh ◽

10.1017/s2046056200000239 ◽

1891 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. 190-204

Author(s):

A. Gillies Smith

Keyword(s):

Precious Metals ◽

Daily Work ◽

The Future ◽

Value Of Money ◽

As If

Some years have now elapsed since I had the honour of addressing you from this chair. In the paper which I then read to you I urged on our younger members the necessity of studying finance, and especially of endeavouring to form a just estimate of the value of money, and of the rate of interest which will obtain in the future, so far as that future forms an element in our calculations. Without this knowledge we shall build with insufficient materials, and in the absence of its thoughtful application to our daily work, and to our periodical investigations and valuations, we shall rear a fabric which, although it may last during our lives, and look to all appearance as if it were carefully and substantially built, will certainly, before its time, show symptoms of decay, and finally fall about the ears of too confiding policy-holders.

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