THE EARLY ROUND OF THE BULLIONIST DEBATE 1800-1802: BOYD, BARING AND THORNTON’S INNOVATIVE IDEAS Arie Arnon Discussion Paper No. 07-14 October 2007 Monaster Center for Economic Research Ben-Gurion University of the Negev P.O. Box 653 Beer Sheva, Israel Fax: 972-8-6472941 Tel: 972-8-6472286 August 26, 2007 Not to be Quoted Comments Welcome The Early Round of the Bullionist Debate 1800-1802: Boyd, Baring and Thornton’s Innovative Ideas * Arie Arnon ** © * An earlier draft of the paper was presented at the 34 th Annual Meeting of the History of Economics Society, June, 2007 at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Virginia. I would like to thank David Levy for his discussion and Neil Skaggs and other participants for their helpful comments. The paper has been written while I was visiting ILER at UC Berkeley. I thank the Institute for its hospitality and intellectual environment. The following paper is based on ongoing work towards a monograph provisionally titled: Money, Credit and the Economy: Studies in the History of Monetary Theory from Smith to Wicksell. ** Department of Economics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, and Economics & Society Program, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. Currently on sabbatical at UC Berkeley, CA, emails:
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[email protected] Abstract The Restriction period, which began in England in 1797, marked a crucial turning point for both monetary theory and policy. The debates during the Restriction concerning the complicated relationship between inflation, the exchanges and monetary aggregates came to be known as the Bullionist Debate . The Bullionists were critical of the Bank of England and supported a return to convertibility, whereas the anti-Bullionists defended the Bank and were satisfied with the inconvertible system.