Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics

The Gold Standard in Contemporary Economic Principles Textbooks: A Survey

The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics
Downloads

 

Volume 8, No. 3 (Fall 2005)

 

Throughout much of modern history, gold served as the commodity that most widely facilitated free exchange. While its virtues as a medium-of-exchange were clear to people of previous eras, gold has fallen out of favor, both in its use as money and in the esteem in which it was once held among academics. It used to be the case that gold, the gold standard, and the various other iterations it took over its many years of employment saturated the study of money and economics, but now it is often difficult even to find substantive references to it in modern textbooks. Just what is the prevailing understanding today on the subject of the gold standard? The world is now a generation removed from any semblance of a gold standard and well over a century from its heyday. With little or no practical experience with it, almost all dialogue about it exists now in the fringes of the academic community. The minimal emphasis that mainstream economists place on a gold standard is reflected in the scant attention placed on it in modern principles of economics and monetary textbooks.

CITE THIS ARTICLE

Kimball, James. “The Gold Standard in Contemporary Economic Principles Textbooks: A Survey.” The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 8, No. 3 (Fall 2005): 59-80.

All Rights Reserved ©
What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. 

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

Become a Member
Mises Institute