LECTURES ON
POLITICAL ECONOMY

BY

KNUT WICKSELL

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

LIONEL ROBBINS

VOLUME TWO

MONEY

AUGUSTUS M. KELLEY • PUBLISHERS
FAIRFIELD 1978

First edition 1935
 (London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1935)

Reprinted 1978 by

AUGUSTUS M. KELLEY • PUBLISHERS

Fairfield, New Jersey 07006
By arrangement with Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloged.

The original printing of this title as follows:

Wicksell, Knut, 1851–1926.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The literature on the subject of money is abundant. According to an estimate of C. Menger (in his article “Geld” in Conrad’s Handwörterbuch) an approximately complete bibliography would fill an octavo volume of over 300 pages. Yet its importance is not proportionate to its scope; of course, the innumerable special treatises on the money of different countries and different ages have their value, but the standard works which have advanced our knowledge of the nature and laws of money are comparatively few.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The above-mentioned works of Nasse-Lexis, and especially Helfferich. The articles on Currency, Currency Unions, the Precious Metals, gold, silver, bimetallic and parallel currency, etc., in the Handwörterbuch and the works referred to there. Current accounts of the production of the precious metals in Statistisk Årsbok; cf. also, Davidson, Guldproduktion och Varuprisen (Ekonomisk Tidskrift, 1901, p. 525, and essays by the author in subsequent issues of the same periodical).

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Since the following exposition will be primarily theoretical in character, we must necessarily refer to the works which describe more or less exhaustively the actual working of the money market, especially in our own day. Among them, in the Scandinavian languages, we must note W. Scharling’s extremely well-written Bankpolitik; Aschehoug’s already cited work, ch. 62 et seq.; J.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—In view of its central importance in a rational theory of money, the problem of the exchange value of money and its fluctuations may well be said to have received scanty treatment in the literature of the subject. The most important writings on the subject date from the first half of the nineteenth century, especially Ricardo’s famous pamphlet, High Price of Bullion, Reply to Mr. Bosanquet, etc., to some extent also Senior’s Lectures on the Cost of Obtaining Money and On.

Adler, S., I, vii

Åkermann, G., I, viii, xvi, 258 ff.

Anderson, I, 116

Arendt, II, 29

Aristotle, I, 3, 17; II, 191

Arnberg, I, 4

Ascbehoug, II, 2

Babelon, II, 29

Bagehot, II, 59

Bamberger, II, 29

Barone, I, 101, 171

Bastiat, I, 4, 27, 28, 146

Bertrand, I, 97

Bey, Lambert, I, 73

Abstinence, I, 236

Accumulation of capital—effect on labour, I, 216–7

—general theory of, I, 207 ff.

—and increase in durability, I, 266 ff.

—limits to, 1, 155

—low interest rates and, I, 241; II, 205

—and money, II, 24–5

—and prices of original factors, II, 12–13

—in stationary conditions, I, 203

—and wages and rent, I, 157, 163–4, 183, 268

See also Saving.