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Laidler, David

Working Paper Professor Fisher and the quantity theory: A significant encounter

Research Report, No. 2011-1

Provided in Cooperation with: Department of Economics, University of Western Ontario

Suggested Citation: Laidler, David (2011) : Professor Fisher and the quantity theory: A significant encounter, Research Report, No. 2011-1, The University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics, London (Ontario)

This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/70412

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Professor Fisher and the Quantity Theory - A Significant Encounter

by

David Laidler

Research Report # 2011-1 November 2011

Department of Economics Research Report Series

Department of Economics Social Science Centre The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, N6A 5C2 Canada

This research report is available as a downloadable pdf file on our website http://economics.uwo.ca/econref/WorkingPapers/departmentresearchreports.html.

Professor Fisher and the Quantity Theory - a Significant Encounter *

by

David Laidler

*Paper presented (in the author's absence by Rebeca Gomez Betancourt and Gilbert Faccarello) on October 14th 2011 at the Universite Lumiere-Lyon 2, at a conference marking the centenary of the publication of 's Purchasing Power of . I am grateful to Mauro Boianovsky, Robert Dimand, Rebeca Gomez Betancourt, Peter Howitt, Axel Leijonhufvud, and Roger Sandilands for helpful correspondence about earlier drafts.

1

Abstract: Irving Fisher's encounter with the began in the 1890s, during the debate about bimetallism, and reached its high point in 1911 with the publication of The Purchasing Power of Money. His most important refinement of the theory, derived from his recognition of bank deposits as means of exchange, was to treat their out of equilibrium recursive interaction with as integral to it. This treatment underlay both his 1920s work on the business cycle as a "dance of the dollar" and his advocacy of subjecting monetary policy to a legislated price stability rule, initially to be based on his "compensated dollar" scheme. Fisher's failure to recognize the onset of the Great Depression even as it was happening was directly related to his faith in the quantity theory's seeming implication that stability in and of itself guaranteed the continuation of prosperity, while his subsequent work on the debt