Monetary-policy

Modern Theories Of Money: The Nature And Role Of Money In Capitalist Economies by Louis-Philippe Rochon (Stephen B. Monroe Assistant Professor of Economics and Banking at Kalamazoo College) and Sergio Rossi (Assistant Professor of Economics at the Universities of Fribourg and Lugano, Switzerland) brings together an impressively informative collection of essays by learned authors concerning modern economic theories of money, including post-Keynesian monetary approaches, the theory of the monetary circuit, the theory of money emissions, and more. A college-level, scholarly resource, Modern Theories Of Money accessibly dissects complex economic principles and hypotheses, and is especially recommended reading for advanced students and professionals in Economic Studies.

I highly recommend this book, since it is to my knowledge the most complete book on the history of Colombian money, a must for any banknote collector.

Written by the coins and medals experts of the British Museum, this handsomely designed work succinctly but comprehensively explores the entire history of money, from its earliest beginnings to the electronic transactions of the 1990's.
The book features over 550 beautiful color and black-and-white illustrations, with essays covering ancient and modern coinage in global perspective, and relating the moral, political, religious, and social meanings inevitably associated with so powerful a force. Highly recommended as an excellent introduction to a complex subject, or just for enjoyable and informative browsing.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

This book has impressed me greatly. I think it can be a bestseller for most of specialist in finance.

In this must-have reference book for the economic historian, McCusker compiles an impressive amount of information on the major European currencies, units of account and relative values, and presents it a clear and straightforward fashion. Conversion tables, market values and stock exchange quotes make it extremely easy to obtain the information as needed. If a number or a series is all you want, you can go in and out of this book in seconds, taking with you everything you need. In my personal experience, I managed to convert prices in florins per Dutch pound to pence per British pound between 1690 and 1720 in a matter of minutes (and it involves six different weight, monetary and accounting conversions!). But the masterful accounts that accompany each chapter make it worth spending much more time on it.

About 25 years ago M I Finley championed in his _Ancient Economy_ the idea that the ancient Greeks' love of coins was a political phenomenon, a sign of "patriotism or advertisement with no far reaching importance." What Finley had in mind was something akin to modern communities where a "national currency and national essence" have become common. This book presents a series of scholarly papers which show new studies of the social and economic use of coins and money in the Greek world.

Kim begins with a paper in which he shows that coins were a symbol as well as a commodity. Other societies bordering the Greek world (especially the Phoenicians) did not develop coinage for a century after the Greeks. Trevett explores the relation-ship between coinage and democracy at Athens. Democracy could not have existed without coinage. Oliver raises the question of whether or not Macedonian political control have an effect on the Athenian ability to issue coins. Meadows asks a similar question concerning the eastern Hellenisitic world. Von Reden argues that in Ptolemaic Egypt, coinage became a crucial bond between the central and local rulers. Ashton writes about the effects of the output of coinage from Rhodes from 408 to 190 BC. Davies writes about how coinage transformed "the ways in which the assets of collectives, cults, and sanctuaries were held, regarded, and used." Shipton studies the relationship between the State and those who owned state-owned property. And Rowlandson studies the records of Egypt for the relationship between peasants and wealthy landlords.

It should be pointed out to the reader that this book is an attempt to bridge the gap between numismatists and scholars of ancient history. Ashton's paper is as dry as any economics paper can be. The book is concluded with 12 plates of 350 or so coins from the Hellenistic world.

This is a must-have book on the most important topic in the world, MONEY.

All of Dowd's books are of key importance.

Compiled and edited by David Boyle (Senior Associate, New Economics Foundation, London, England), The Money Changers: Currency Reform From Aristotle To E-Cash is an anthology of expert essays by respected authors spanning a history of money ranging from 350 BC down to the modern day. Special focus is provided concerning the foibles, difficulties, and challenges facing currency systems. From the problems that arise from too much or too little money wreaking havoc on the economy, to the mind-boggling possibilities of electronic commerce and e-cach, The Money Changers is a fascinating wealth of economic insight, gleaned from great names through the centuries including J M Keynes, Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Aristotle, Marco Polo, B F Skinner and much more. Highly recommended for both academia and non-specialist general readers with an interest in economics.

Mehrling's uses the intellectual biographies of Allyn Young, Alvin Hansen and Ed Shaw to illustrate changes in American monetary thought from 1920-70. Young died in 1929 at the age of 52, too young to test his ideas under conditions of the Great Depression, but this sectionshows how the origins of the Federal Reserve system were supported by populists from the Middle West. Alvin Hansen was the most important of the three in terms of influencing economic policy. The great strength of Mehrling's book is his treatment of the relationship between Keynes's ideas in the General Theory, which were more influenced by revolting against Marshall, and those of Hansen, who made his reputation studying business cycles and whose pre-Keynesian ideas came out of the Continrntal historical school and were more like those of Schumpeter. Although it took Hansen some time to adjust to the General Theory, his famous seminar at Harvard in 1937 helped him understand the importance of Keynesia! n thinking. Like Keynes, he was able to change his ideas even though he was already in his fifties. He also used Keynes's conversion from neo-Malthusianism to pro-natalism to buttress his own secular stagnation hypothesis. He was most active in the late New Deal and pushed for the Keynesian thinking at Bretton Woods after the war. Ed Shaw, the last of the Mehrling trio, was noted for his building of the economics department at Stanford after the war. Shaw was a non-Keynesian from the beginning, even criticizing the deficit-financing of World War II. One of Shaw's recruits was Jack Gurley, who co-edited the second edition of Shaw's classic text and who introduced Keynesian thinking, making it more mainstream. Shaw, himself, was isolated from the profession despite his early adoption of many Friedman positions.

It is unfortunate that a book of such wide applicability and interest to anyone doing research in the fields of macroeconomics and the history of economic thought is so high-priced. As D.P. O'Brien said in The Economic Journal, "Virtually no essay in the collection is without interest and it should be on the bookshelves of everybody interested in monetary economics." How about a paperback version?