Search results

Marshall, Pigou, and Keynes on one side of the Atlantic, and Fisher on the other, had different approaches to the quantity theory of money. But they shared its basic framework, with the result that theoretical discussions did not prevent some degree of mutual support on policy proposals. If a divergence there was, at this stage, this pertained the feasibility of Fisher’s proposals, because Fisher’s enthusiasm for reform could find no match at Cambridge. This notwithstanding, and although in varying degrees, Marshall, Pigou, and Keynes were sympathetic with Fisher’s battle for “stable money.” Indeed, a fragment from the Keynes Papers shows that, at a very early stage of his career, Keynes paid great attention to Fisher’s empirical research on the relationship between “Appreciation and interest,” taking the relation between nominal and real rates of interest as a possible explanation of the trade cycle. For some time at least, this widened the common ground upon which Fisher’s proposals for “stable money” could find some support at Cambridge.

The past two decades of economic activity in the U.S. have been characterized by both high inflation and interest rates in comparison to previous periods of stability. The importance of these two variables to our economic welfare and to the effectiveness of economic policy have led to renewed interest in the Fisher Effect. This is the hypothesis put forth by Irving Fisher describing the relationship between these two variables. It usually takes the form R = re + pe + repe (1) in which R is the nominal rate of interest, re is the expected real rate of interest, and pe is the expected rate of change of prices. The term repe is usually considered insignificant and is dropped, giving R = re + pe. (2) Although this equation can be readily quantified on an ex post basis using actual rather than expected values, the fact that expectation of r and p are not directly observable have always made it difficult to derive an ex ante measure of the real rate.

According to what is reported by the North America Oral History Association, oral history was established in 1948 as a modern technique for historical documentation when Columbia University historian Allan Nevins began recording the memoirs of people who had played a significant role in American public life. While working on a biography of President Grover Cleveland, Nevins found that Cleveland's associates left few of the kinds of personal records – private correspondences, diaries, and memoirs – that biographers generally rely on for their historical reconstructions. Nevins thus came up then with the idea of filling the gaps in the official records with narratives and anecdotes from living memory. Accordingly, he conducted his first interview in 1948 with New York civic leader George McAneny, and both the Columbia Oral History Research Office – the largest archival collection of oral history interviews in the world – and the contemporary oral history movement were born (Thomson, 1998).

Banking and finance during the past several decades have become “re‐internationalized,” not simply “internationalized.” This becomes clear when we compare the institutional features of banking and finance today with those in the early part of this century, the last period in which both had a substantial international dimension. It is further apparent in historical data that are analyzed in the paper: cross‐country spreads between real interest rates over the long period 1835 to 1990, and figures for gross foreign assets available for a number of major countries at key points in time from 1885 to 1994. The paper concludes by discussing the factors responsible for the changes that have occurred in banking and finance during the past several decades.

The meaning of money supply in an arrow sense is currency and demand deposits. In Oman, it has increased very slowly till 1970 and then started to increase broadly till now. This increment is due to the development of the oil exports, so that the share of its currency becomes more than 50% of its money supply in the narrows sense during the period 1973‐2000. But this percentage started decreasing since 2001 compared with demand deposits. The econometric analysis concluded that there is a ppositive relationship between money supply and such independent variables as gross domestic production, government deficit, international reserves and oil export. It was also concluded that there is a positive relationship between money supply in the wide sense and oil export. The monetary indicators showed that the net domestic credit allowed to the private sector and the net foreign assets of the banking system are the main factors that positively affect money supply. It was also noted that the quasi money such as time deposits, saving deposits, capital account and reserve account has negatively affected money supply during the period 1974‐2003.

The existence of statistical price index series does not persuasively support proposals to modify account data from prior transaction experience. The consequences of using accounting techniques will demonstrate whether those actions have served accounting objectives satisfactorily. Management’s overt actions in the markets, rather than changes in general price-levels, are the source of enterprise earnings. Accounting objectives are either compelling or limiting elements affecting the choice and use of accounting techniques.

This chapter investigates the nature of the transformation of macroeconomics by focusing on the impact of the Great Depression on economic doctrines. There is no doubt that the Great Depression exerted an enormous influence on economic thought, but the exact nature of its impact should be examined more carefully. In this chapter, I examine the transformation from a perspective which emphasizes the interaction between economic ideas and economic events, and the interaction between theory and policy rather than the development of economic theory. More specifically, I examine the evolution of what became known as macroeconomics after the Depression in terms of an ongoing debate among the “stabilizers” and their critics. I further suggest using four perspectives, or schools of thought, as measures to locate the evolution and transformation; the gold standard mentality, liquidationism, the Treasury view, and the real-bills doctrine. By highlighting these four economic ideas, I argue that what happened during the Great Depression was the retreat of the gold standard mentality, the complete demise of liquidationism and the Treasury view, and the strange survival of the real-bills doctrine. Each of those transformations happened not in response to internal debates in the discipline, but in response to government policies and real-world events.