quantity theory of money

quantity theory of money, economic theory relating changes in the price levels to changes in the quantity of money. In its developed form, it constitutes an analysis of the factors underlying inflation and deflation.

(Read Milton Friedman’s Britannica entry on money.)

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David Hume, statue in Edinburgh.

David M. Jensen

As developed by the English philosopher John Locke in the 17th century, the Scottish philosopher David Hume in the 18th century, and others, it was a weapon against the mercantilists, who were thought to equate wealth with money. If the accumulation of money by a nation merely raised prices, argued the quantity theorists, then a “favourable” balance of trade, as desired by mercantilists, would increase the supply of money but would not increase wealth. In the 19th century the quantity theory contributed to the ascendancy of free trade over protectionism. In the 19th and 20th centuries it played a part in the analysis of business cycles and in the theory of foreign exchange rates.

The quantity theory came under attack during the 1930s, when monetary expansion seemed ineffective in combating deflation. Economists argued that the levels of investment and government spending were more important than the money supply in determining economic activity.

The tide of opinion reversed again in the 1960s, when experience with post-World War II inflation and new empirical studies of money and prices—such as A Monetary History of the United States (1963) by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz—restored much of the quantity theory’s lost prestige. One implication of this theory is that the size of the stock of money must be considered when shaping governmental policies meant to control prices and maintain full employment.