Paper money and national distress: William Huskisson and the early theories of credit, speculation and crises

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_22C4243A3C65
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Paper money and national distress: William Huskisson and the early theories of credit, speculation and crises
Journal
European Journal of the History of Economic Thought
Author(s)
Besomi D.
ISSN
0967-2567 (Print,1469-5936)
Publication state
Published
Issued date
03/2010
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
17
Number
1
Pages
49-85
Language
english
Abstract
This paper examines the explanation of commercial crises offered by William Huskisson in 1810 in the wake of the debate on the Bullion Report. Huskisson argued that the suspension of convertibility made it possible to extend issues of paper currency beyond its proper limits. Such an expansion, being in the interest of all parties concerned, would actually take place and stimulate excessive speculations, which would eventually prove unsustainable and bring generalized ruin and distress. Although some elements of this explanations were not new (having been anticipated by writers sucha as James Currie in 1793, William Roscoe in 1793, William Anderson in 1797 and an anonymous in 1796), Huskisson's explanation is more systematic and better organized, and his emphasis on the endogenous character of the crisis and on the instability of the dynamics of trade and credit makes it an interesting foreshadower of the theories of crises that were advanced half a century later.
Create date
07/10/2009 7:18
Last modification date
20/08/2019 14:00
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