Talk:Monetarism

This article has been gutted
Over the past couple months, I see that this article has been gutted by people who have been removing substantial amounts of information -- both in support of and against Monetarism. Wikipedia should be NPOV, not blank to avoid controversy. Both sides should be presented. A description of the rise of Monetarism during the 1970's stagflation is noteworthy, as are the modern criticisms. If you have a problem with something because it's poorly worded or not sourced, please improve the article by editing it and\or sourcing the statement rather than just deleting large blocks of text. 69.138.16.202 (talk) 00:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Monetarism in action
Should we put the UK governments recent hand over of control to the Bank of England in there? Or would you not really class it as monetarism in action?Lukeitfc 09:59, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Hrrm - many missing key figures. Schwartz and Bernanke specifically.

Should we use the term M1 for money supply?

-M1 does not include all forms of money, if I recall correctly. I would prefer to keep referring to money supply as money supply. -USMA2010

Removing this:
"Many monetarists back, or at least are sympathetic to, a return to some form of gold standard as a way of preventing misallocation of capital and preventing fiat money from being inflated, since their view is that government action is at the root of inflation."

As it's completely false. The closest I can think of an example would be Mundell, but he's generally not considered a monetarist and definetly not a 'definitive' one. As a matter of fact i can't think of any serious economists other than him who support a return to a gold standard.radek 06:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Needs work
The article is mostly correct, aside from a few imprecise statements. However it does suffer from a lack of organization and needs to be revised for clarity. Working on it.radek 07:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem with section titled Rise. At bottom of that section, second to last paragraph cites May 1979 election inflation as 10.3 yet last paragraph says it was at 27%. Can't be both. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.8.35.207 (talk) 00:38, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

more on asset price inflation and the wage/profit bargain
I d like to see more on this subject. Historically asset prices were not included in Friedman's formula. I think it is now admitted that it was the main flaw in the model, no demand for liquidity for the acquisition of assets (or goods produced in former years) was included. Monetarism has been also disproven by the fact that the wage/labor arbitrage seems a major contributor to inflation-deflation, inflation and deflation being therefore not only monetary phenomenon. For instance wages and prices are kept low now and in the 20's by lack of labor power on the labor market, due to anti labor policies and pro free trade policies (globalisation). During the 70's on the opposite Labor being very strong managed to get ever higher wages causing an inflation spiral.

Who wrote this article, Murray Rothbard?
What a joke, its very biased. I bet a lot of mises.org fanboys visit this article daily to insert weasel words. It needs a clean-up

"...accept Keynesian economics and then critique it on its own terms"
Re: Milton Friedman, who was among the generation of liberal economists to accept Keynesian economics and then critique it on its own terms. 

Could someone who understands this please expand or reword it to be more specific? It's confusing to the average reader. I have a basic (layperson's) idea of Keynesian economics, but in what way does Friedman "critique it on its own terms"? Thanks. --Singkong2005 &middot; talk 13:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much about economics, but here's my understanding of what that means. There are two ways to critique a theory. One is to reject the initial assumptions that the theory is derived from. This leads to a debate about whose assumptions are correct. The second way is to accept the assumptions, but show that the conclusions don't follow from those assumptions, which leads to a debate about the theory itself. When the article tells us that Friedman accepted Kensian economics but critiqued it on its own terms, I assume he's accepting the assumptions but rejecting the conclusions. If I'm wrong, could somebody please clarify this phrase? Thanks. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 11:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I usually avoid the Discussions concerning Economics, in particular, and, generally, anything having to do with Mathematics. I'm MUCH better at "HOW, may I ask, could you say, with ANY degree of certainty, that he/she believe(s)(d) THAT, when (they) just got through saying THIS!!??" Someone linked to here from just such a discussion and, as Singkong, I, too, was struck by the nature, not structure, of that sentence. I couldn't, just, put my finger on it, until I read this Discussion above.

I noticed that Miguel Munoz started his exposition with, "I don't know much about economics..." and, perforce, started his conclusion with "I assume... (I will forebear noting that, within the "assum(ing)", he also mis-labels Mr. Friedman)".

Exactly, so! Then the confusing paragraph must be deleted OR a discussion of the "critiques" that Mr. Friedman has, within or without, must be added. Otherwise....... (Paleocon44 (talk) 18:25, 18 April 2010 (UTC))

Inflation targeting
I assume inflation targeting is a form of monetarism - however, both articles need to be a bit clearer, and link to each other. --Chriswaterguy talk 07:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Nicholas Kaldor
What a joke, no mention of Nicholas Kaldor! How could an article on Monetarism fail to mention its most outstanding critic during the 1970s and 1980s?

Split
This article needs to be split into Monetarism and Monetary economics. Monetarism is a school of thought while monetary economics is a branch of macroeconomics. Monetarists emphasize monetary economics as the crucial part of macroeconomics, but the two are not the same thing. Non-monetarists still study monetary economics. Lumping the two together confuses the topics.--Bkwillwm (talk) 17:53, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * on second thought, parts of this article related to "monetary economics" can be moved to Monetary theory. I will start the change soon.--Bkwillwm (talk) 06:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The history of this article
For those who are curious, this article has only been hit with a few major edits, (see the history statistics) most of them coming before we recorded kilobytes in the history page. User:WojPob did the first few sections in a single edit. User:Stirling Newberry then did a string of substantial edits. User:J heisenberg made a small but substantive addition. An anonymous IP added a sentence. User:Radeksz made a string of very small but appropriate edits. User:Longlivefolkmusic also made a very small but appropriate edit. User:EclectEcon, another small but appropriate. Another anon editor added a sentence of sourced information. Stirling Newberry did a little more cleanup.

I won't comment on what happened post May 2007: since kilobytes began to be recorded it has been easier to track changes. But it is notable that the May 2007 version does not differ much from the current version. Why did I do this little history? One, I'm always curious as to who did most of the contributing on articles, so I'm often sifting through history. Since others may be curious, this does much of the work for you. Second, I wanted to highlight how few people actually did a lot of contributions to this article. If you add decent content to this article, you join a very small group. Most of this article can be attributed to one user: Stirling Newberry. Since then, User:Gregalton deserves credit for a little cleanup, but not much has happened. II | (t - c) 19:42, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

"This argument is supported by macroeconomic data, such as price stability in the 1920s and the slow rise of the money supply.[citation needed]" This sentence should be supported by citation or deleted. I have read conflicting sources about the rise of the money supply. In fact according to Hayek; the money supply has increased quite handsomely in the 20s. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tugrulcan (talk • contribs) 08:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Greenspan a monetarist?
The article lists Greenspan as a "leading monetarist" and describes him as such in the text body when mentioning his appointment. Now, at one point Greenspan might very well have been a monetarist (in the Friedmanite sense of the term) but his actions as Fed Chairman were not monetarist. He did not follow a k-% rule. He did not focus solely on price stability. His reaction to the 1987 crash was essentially Keynesian as was good part of the monetary policy of the 90's. Part of this characterization stems from the schizophrenic definition of monetarism in the article (which admittedly has some roots in the actual literature). If monetarism is just the proposition that "money matters" then yes, Greenspan was a monetarist and in fact "we are all monetarists now". If monetarism is the stronger proposition that the optimal way to conduct monetary policy is to use a k-% rule and avoid discretionary changes, then no, he wasn't. If anything, Volcker would be closer to this stronger definition of monetarism than Greenspan and even he reversed himself. It would be good to get some actual sources to support the various definitions/discussions of monetarism and how people like Volcker and Greenspan fit in with those. Krugman's written plenty of stuff on it in the past.radek (talk) 00:48, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I remember a Newsweek column of Friedman's where he explained that people often confuse his monetarism with his conservative views. He gave a definition of monetarism that, I think, said that it's the belief that the money supply is the most important thing, but it was about understanding the economy, not manipulating it. He went as far as to say that, strictly speaking, Marx was a monetarist. I don't have a reference, but his Newsweek essays were published in books, so it shouldn't be hard to find. I think the piece was called "Defining Monetarism." —MiguelMunoz (talk) 03:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Monetarism vs. Keynesianism and the end of the great depression
I don't have a degree in economics, just a passing interest in the field, and I'm certainly not in a position to argue one side or the other in this debate. But reading this article raised a big question. The article raises Friedman critique of Keynes's explanation for the great depression, but I want to know what Friedman's explanation is for how the depression ended. Keynes's explanation, as I understand it, is that the spending on the war provided the stimulus. In fact, to a layman like me, that's the most prominent feature of Keynes's theory. The key points of the debate between these two would be clearer if I knew what Friedman said about this. This question is especially important in today's economy. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 09:14, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I adhere to Austrian economics but the monetarist explanation is that afterwards, the Fed pumped "enough" money into the system so the economy could function smoothly, and after WWII Roosevelt's more obnoxious policies(such as price controls, cartelization, etc..) were abandoned so the market recovered.Teeninvestor (talk) 13:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The gold standard would prevent inflation?
There is a statement in the paragraph regarding the gold standard that the gold standard would prevent inflation. One of two things are wrong:

1) The statement that the gold standard would "prevent" inflation

2) This plot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Historical_Inflation_Ancient.svg Which clearly shows inflation after 1875 (de facto adoption--I think) and after 1900 (de jure adoption) up until both the federal reserve act (1913) and great depression (when the gold standard was abandoned--I think). --75.187.62.55 (talk) 08:58, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Bullion controversy
Shouldn't this article include something on the early developments that led to modern monetarism, e.g. Ricardian economics and the Bullion Controversy in 1810 England? See e.g.  - Fayenatic (talk) 13:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Inept former lead sentence.
If it's put back, it would be "Monetarist theory", "Monetarism theory" is inept English. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 01:08, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Irrelevant references to Falklands War
This sentence is both lengthy and of questionable relevance:

"This policy was controversial with the public and even some of her own Members of Parliament (MPs) (as well as former Conservative prime ministers Harold Macmillan[7]and Edward Heath)[8], but her success in the Falklands war led to a recovery in her popularity which, coupled with a division of the votes between opposition parties, in turn led to her Conservative party winning the 1983 general election with a substantially increased majority in spite of their share of the vote declining."

Tne topic of the article is Monetarism, not the political career of Ms. Thatcher. I think that the sentence should be deleted or truncated to:

"This policy was controversial with the public and even some of her own Members of Parliament (MPs) (as well as former Conservative prime ministers Harold Macmillan[7]and Edward Heath)[8]"

Anyone disagree?

--Wdanbae (talk) 22:31, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Agree. But if you successfully removed it, it's back in. I have edited out the politics as best I can and will monitor. 86.2.64.179 (talk) 18:59, 22 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Agree. Byelf2007 (talk) 22 July 2012

Removed strange assertion and link
The sentence I got rid of:

"Since August 15, 1971, when the U.S. became Monetarily Sovereign, there has been no relationship between federal deficit spending and inflation. See: http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/more-thoughts-on-inflation/"

This is a POV plug for Rodger Mitchell's view that taxation and deficit spending can be avoided by simply printing more money, and that this does not lead to inflation. I don't see what this has to do with an article about Monetarism, especially in the main Description section. FastPlatypus (talk) 02:57, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Criticisms
The entire section titled "Criticisms", added in August 2012, has no references whatsoever. The first subsection, on wealth redistribution effects, is interesting but, without citations or references, seems like a personal essay. I'm not an expert on this subject, but I suspect it may have some inaccuracies, as well. The second subsection, which seems to be mistakenly inserted as a sub-sub-section, is even more dubious. It is clearly describing conflict of interest, but mistakenly calling it "moral hazard".

There must be plenty of scholarly criticisms that could be summarized in this section. I would hope that this section could also be an appropriate place for counter-opinions from the Austrian school (rather than surreptitious insertions and deletions in the rest of the article). LineChaser (talk) 06:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and removed the section. The "moral hazard" section didn't really make sense and looked like OR. The "inflation targeting" section also had many problems, and doesn't really apply to monetarism.--Bkwillwm (talk) 06:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Undid edit 09:52, 24 March 2013‎ by 101.112.174.218
Edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Monetarism&diff=546705435&oldid=540929802 removed what appear to me to be perfectly valid content; the unsigned user's talk page has several warnings. This made me feel justified in undoing the edit.  SteveT (talk)  03:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Further references correction
I corrected the [very recently modified] broken link for Warburton's "Depression, Inflation, and Monetary Policy" "http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:cFrInfZq5ZMJ:www.nber.org/chapters/c7504.pdf" with "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801806550." Question: is reference to an Amazon page "kosher?" If the consensus is that it is not, I shall remove it.  SteveT (talk)  04:44, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

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More complete economic conditions in the UK needed
The more complete story of the UK inflation fight post 1975 is needed. Certainly more than the deceptive presentation of the 1978 and 1985 inflation rates attributed to monetarist policy. (I added some text to augment before someone tries to insert t"Merry Christmas, Margaret Thatcher!" into the article.) Assistance is needed here, including details of the kind of monetarist prescription implemented by the UK government, the effect of UK foreign exchange rate policy, and the reappearance of high UK inflation rates in the late 1980s.

Update on link between money supply & inflation needed
I am a bit shocked about the state of this article. It doesn't seem to have a proper up-to-date discussion of the validity of monetarist theories in the light of empirical evidence. Even the most conservatively monetarist central banks (e.g. Deutsche Bundesbank) have largely abandoned the belief that "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon". Obvious counter-examples to monetarism are balance sheet expansions in the US and Europe but largely muted inflation. Some more up-to-date references can be found in: Hung, H. F., & Thompson, D. (2016). Money supply, class power, and inflation: Monetarism reassessed. American Sociological Review, 81(3), 447-466. 4EverStudent (talk) 22:54, 8 February 2021 (UTC)