MONEY AND PRICES IN COLONIAL AMERICA - A NEW TEST OF COMPETING THEORIES

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: MCCALLUM, BT
• 署名单位: National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/261810
• 发表日期: 1992
• 页码: 143-161
• 关键词: QUANTITY THEORY; FAILURE; ECONOMY

摘要

In a long-standing controversy over monetary experiences in colonial America, the main substantive issue concerns large and rapid increases in stocks of paper currency that were followed by negligible changes in price levels. The backing theory or anticlassical interpretation is that prices failed to respond to major increases in total money supplies. The quantity theory or classical hypothesis, by contrast, is that specie was exported in amounts that left total money stocks approximately unchanged. This paper develops and applies a strategy for resolving this fundamental disagreement despite the absence of data on stocks and flows of specie.