In Search of the "Veil of Money" and the "Neutrality of Money

A Note on the Origin of Terms

Bibliographic Data

ID8049048
AuthorsDon Patinkin, Otto Steiger
Year1989
Volume91
Issue1
Pages131-131
Publication date1989-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueScandinavian Journal of Economics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0347-0520 • E-ISSN: 1467-9442
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2307/3440167
OpenAlexW1504553295
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited15

Nowadays Veil of Money and Neutrality of Money are shorthand expressions for basic quantity-theory proposition that it is only absolute price level of an economy, and not relative prices and rate of interest, and hence real outputs, that is affected by changes in quantity of money. Thus notion goes back to early concepts of quantity theory, such as classic statement by David Hume in his 1752 essays Of Money, Of Interest and Of Balance of Trade. One would have thought that an author such as Mill, who (in spirit of Hume) made famous statements that the relations of commodities to one another remain unaltered by money and that there cannot, in short, be intrinsically a more insignificant thing, in economy of society, than money ( 1871, p. 488 ) would also have made use of one or both of these terms. We have not, however, succeeded in finding them in any of Mill's writings

Neutrality · Economic Theory and Institutions · Economic Theory and Policy · Political Economy and Marxism

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