Economics Books

"In 1875... the very same question came before all the Judges in the great case of Goodwin v. Robarts. In this case the question was whether Scrip, which was a mere promise to deliver Bonds, possessed the attribute of Negotiability, of Currency, like Bank Notes, Bills of Exchange, and other Securities for Money. ...the Lord Chief Justice expressed the strongest condemnation of Lord Holt's cases, and said that they were a blot on our judicial history. In delivering the unanimous judgment of the Court he... held that the Act of 1705, which had always been supposed in the profession to have legalised them for the first time, was in reality only declaratory of the Common Law. The judgment... reversed the doctrines of the Queen's Bench... and affirmed the doctrines I had laid down in my Digest on these points, as the true statement of the Law."

"In 1875, when I had published [an] improved edition of the Elements... the Principles of Economical Philosophy, he wrote to me—"It is your book which serves me as the guide for all the Philosophy of my teaching at the Collége de France.""

"In 1858 I published the Elements of Political Economy, in which, for the first time, it was treated as the Science of Exchanges, or of Commerce, in accordance with the conception of its founders, and of Whately. Upon sending this work to M. , who was at that time the most distinguished Professor of Political Economy in Europe, he... used all his influence to popularise my doctrines in France."

"Being... acquainted with the Juridical Principles of Credit, I acquired a knowledge of their application in Commerce and Banking; from my own observation I then saw how utterly vague, contradictory, and inadequate the notions on the subject were in the works of literary Economists. Not an Economist... had the slightest idea of the fundamental distinction between a Bill of Exchange and a Bill of Lading, or of the distinction between the nature of the Funds and a Mortgage Deed, to which Mill and many others compare them. Moreover, Algebraists have for the last 150 years frequently given Debts as an example of Negative Quantities: but either they have given no explanation of the meaning of the term Negative as applied to Debts: or the few that have done so have given one which every jurist or man of business would tell them is quite erroneous."

"Each of these works... have been utterly destructive of the scientific character of the subject. Each of these writers, like Smith, recognises Personal Qualities and Rights as Wealth. And how can we speak of the "Production, Distribution, and Consumption" of Labour and Rights? But it is quite usual to speak of the Supply and the Demand for Labour and Bills, which are mere Rights."

"J. B. Say, who first defined Political Economy to be the Science of the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth, unfortunately totally overlooked this fact, and has divided his work into separate parts relating to these terms. He has been followed in this by his disciple, John Stuart Mill, who, however, varies from his master in adopting the term Production, Distribution, and Exchange of Wealth."

"Seeing... that Labour and Rights are now recognised as Wealth by all Economists, the most advanced Economists... have now seen that it is absolutely indispensable to resort to and adopt the term Commerce or Exchanges, as the only true conception by which the subject can be made a regular Science. Whately was the first person in this country who clearly explained this, when Professor at Oxford; and Bagehot has repeatedly said that Political Economy is the Theory of Business. Such was the conception I adopted on my first acquaintance with the subject."

"In the article Credit in my Dictionary of Political Economy, I explained the Juridical Theory of Credit, and showed the real meaning of the term Negative as applied to Debts: and showed the application of the principles of Law and Algebra to the great system of Credit and Banking; and also showed the strange self-contradictions of Say and Mill on the subject of Credit."

"In delivering the judgment, the Lord Chief Justice... referring to my Competition Paper, ...said"We find it stated, in a Law tract by Mr. Macleod, entitled 'Specimen of a Digest of the Law of Bills of Exchange,' prepared, we believe, as a Report to the Government, but which, from its research and ability, deserves to be produced in a form calculated to ensure a wider circulation," &c.Thus I had already anticipated, in 1872, the suggestion of the Lord Chief Justice in 1875; and in this work I have embodied further portions of my Digest."

"After the publication of the first edition of this Work, I was led to examine the works of the First School of Economists, the Physiocrates of France and I found that they originated the expression, "Production, Distribution, and Consumption" of Wealth; that they especially restricted the word Wealth to the material products of the earth, which are brought into Commerce and Exchanged; and that they expressly excluded Labour and Rights from the term Wealth; and that the expressions "Production, Distribution and Consumption" of Wealth and Commerce or Exchanges were used by them as equivalent and identical: but restricted to the material products of the earth, to the exclusion of Labour and Rights."

"In that [first] edition [of this Book] also I investigated the Theory of Accommodation Paper, which has produced so many calamities, but which has been so much misunderstood. I explained wherein the true danger of Accommodation Paper consists. In 1861 the failure of Lawrence, Mortimer, and Schroder, popularly known as the great leather fraud case, took place. In his... judgment in the case, Mr. Commissioner Holroyd quoted the explanation given in this Work at great length, thereby giving the sanction of his high authority to its correctness."

"In the first chapter of this Work I have shown that the ancients unanimously held that Exchangeability, or the capability of being bought and sold, is the sole essence and principle of Wealth; and that everything is technically Wealth which can be bought and sold, whatever its form may be. The ancients showed that there are three distinct orders or kinds of Quantities which can be bought and sold, namely: 1, Material Things; 2, Labour, or Personal Qualities; 3, Abstract Rights."

"In the autumn of 1855 a very sudden and severe monetary drain took place. During this drain some very startling and extraordinary circumstances took place... Reflecting on these, I came to the conclusion that the only true method of controlling Credit and the Paper Currency is by sedulously adjusting the Rate of Discount by the Bullion in the Bank and by the state of the Foreign Exchanges. And I explained the reasoning on which this principle is founded in the first edition of this work."

"This opinion was fully verified in the monetary crisis of 1847: the only one which took place after the passing of the Act and before the publication of this work: and also in the subsequent crises of 1857 and 1866: when, if the Act had not been suspended, not only the Bank of England itself, but every Bank in England would have stopped payment, and all commerce been thrown into the most terrible convulsions."

"This doctrine, but very imperfectly understood and extremely unpopular at the time it was first published in 1856, is now universally acknowledged to be the true one, and is adopted by all the Banks in the world. It was acknowledged to be perfectly efficient by Mr. Norman, before the Committee of the House of Commons, on the crisis of 1857; it is the principle upon which the Bank of England is now managed; the Usury Laws in France were modified for the express purpose of enabling the Bank of France to adopt it: and through understanding and adopting this principle, the Notes of the Bank of France, which was obliged to suspend payments in cash during the misfortunes of the country, were enabled to circulate at par. In fact, this principle is now as well established among all competent persons as the Newtonian Law of Gravity."

"Smith begins his work by speaking of real Wealth as being the produce of "Land and Labour," but further on he expressly classes Personal Qualities under the title of Fixed Capital, and Bank Notes, Bills of Exchange, &c., which are mere Rights, or Credit, under Circulating Capital. Thus he distinctly recognises the three orders of Exchangeable Quantities as Wealth. Moreover, he was well aware of the true and original meaning of the expression, "Production and Distribution," because he expressly says that the purport of his first two books is to investigate the Theory of Prices, and they are nothing but an investigation of the Theory of Value, more or less imperfect. McCulloch, in a note to his edition of the work, says that Political Economy might be defined as the Science of Values. Condillac published his work, le Commerce et le Gouvernement in 1776, the same year as Smith published his. He expressly defines Economics as the Science of Commerce, and the first book of his work, like that of Smith, is a Treatise on Commerce. But unfortunately, he never got beyond the Commerce of Material Products."

"The case being submitted to me... Upon reading the case I had prepared, the Attorney and Solicitor General decided, without the slightest hesitation, that my contention was right..."

"In 1853 I was invited to join the Direction of a Bank which had been formed under Sir Robert Peel's Joint Stock Banking Act of 1845. The Board of Trade had made certain promises to the Bank, which were essential to its existence, and which had been embodied in the Charter of the Bank with the express consent of the Board of Trade, and of their legal adviser... When the... Bank... applied... to carry out these engagements... the Board of Trade refused to fulfil them, on the alleged ground that they were illegal. When I joined the Direction, I found that the Directors had been endeavouring for three years to induce the Board of Trade to fulfil their engagements; but the Board had steadfastly refused..."

"In the preparation of this case I was led to examine thoroughly the works of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, and I soon perceived that whatever merits in other respects they may possess, they were extremely defective in all matters relating to Credit, Banking, and the Foreign Exchanges."

"The of 1810, which was appointed in consequence of the serious depreciation of the Paper Currency caused by the extravagant issues of Bank Notes by the , in its Report, one of the most celebrated ever made to Parliament, and which is one of the great landmarks in Political Economy, laid down the principles that the Bank must regulate the issues of its Notes by the quantity of Bullion it held, and by the state of the Foreign Exchanges; but unfortunately it entirely omitted to state the practical measures by which its principles should be carried into effect."

"At this time I had not read a line of any work on Political Economy; but the circumstances I have mentioned enabled me to acquire a store of facts from original knowledge and observation, which were of the greatest use to me when I was obliged to take up the subject."

"This Report was summarily rejected by Parliament in 1811: but it gradually won the assent of all competent men, and in 1819 the Committees of both Houses of Parliament adopted its doctrines. The Bank of England alone issued a protest against them; but the Bank itself was converted in 1827, and made some attempts to adopt these principles, but they all failed."

"The last attempt was that of the . This Act is expressly founded on the dogma that Bank Notes payable to bearer on demand are alone Currency, to the exclusion of all other forms of Credit: and it is intended to carry out a particular Theory of Currency: and the method it adopted was that of imposing a strict numerical limit on the Notes issued by the Bank."

"Thus it will be seen that, as devised by its originators, the expression "Production, Distribution, and Consumption" is one, entire, and indivisible: and it must not be separated into its component terms."

"Macleod's Theory and Practice of Banking, and the same author's Elements of Banking, are full of suggestion, and also very rich in historical material and economic discussion; but they contain matters of doctrine in which the author is at issue with the recognized authorities, and that, too, on points of the first importance."

"When the First Edition was written in 1855-56, I found the Fundamental Conceptions and Principles of the current books on Political Economy so unsatisfactory that I was obliged to examine them at considerable length. Since then I have published the Dictionary of Political Economy, the Principles of Economical Philosophy, and the Elements of Economics, in which the foundations of the Science are thoroughly investigated and established, and therefore it is not necessary to do so in a work devoted to Banking. In this Edition those Fundamental Concepts and Laws only are investigated which are exclusively necessary for the Theory of Credit."

"The author's "Theory and Practice of Banking" is one of the most valuable books in modern economics. A...[T]he author is a very acute critic and deals unsparingly with all opponents. Of course, an author who deals unsparingly with others is likely to receive hard blows in return, and Mr. Macleod has not escaped. His critics have dealt with him in two ways: either they have denounced some of his propositions, especially the leading one in his work on "The Theory of Credit," that it is essentially the same thing as capital, or his opponents have ignored him as unworthy of notice. Yet, when everything has been said concerning the defects in his reasonings, it must be acknowledged that he is one of the most suggestive, acute and able writers in political economy and finance of this generation. "The Theory and Practice of Banking" contains by far the best account of the Bank of England that has appeared. It is true that Gilbart's work, especially the latest edition revised by Mr. Michie, contains an excellent historical account of the operations of the bank, but the criticisms and sidelights thrown on its operations by Mr. Macleod are of great value. We have called the attention of our readers before... that if they desire to study the history and workings of that great institution, which is about to celebrate its four-hundredth anniversary, and which, in many respects, is the greatest bank in the world, we can heartily commend this work for serious study."

"Every mercantile lawyer would at once say that the definition of Currency adopted by the framers of the Act is entirely erroneous; that the Act entirely fails to carry out the Theory of Currency it professes to do: that if that Theory was enforced the Bank could make no profits: and that no Bank constructed on that principle ever did, or could by any possibility, make any profits. Furthermore all the great authorities of former times, including the Bullion Report and Peel himself on several occasions, solemnly protested against imposing a strict numerical limit on the notes of the Bank. Mr. Thornton, the eminent banker, who was one of the authors of the Bullion Report, said, in 1804 that if this rule was strictly carried out in a period of commercial panic it would lead to universal failure."

"At a very early age I became thoroughly conversant with the practical management of... landed property. In 1847 the Administration of the Poor Law in Scotland had fallen into great disorder. The district of country in which I then resided appointed a Committee [which] elected me as their Chairman and entrusted me with the duty of devising a new system of Poor Relief. The scheme which I prepared... and carried out... proved so successful that the Poor Law Board of Scotland requested me to draw up a Report of it to be laid before Parliament... My paper... had great effect in encouraging the rest of the country to adopt the same system and... it has been universally followed."

"Sidney had many admirable qualities. I benefited enormously from his detailed knowledge of financial markets and his historical perspective. His style of writing and his behevior were remarkable. He wrote with a flair in a grand manor. He never criticized; he suggested. ...[H]e plowed through complicated statistical and economic material to unearth meanings and then explained those meanings in understandable language. His advice on my writings was invaluable."

"This book will always be important to me, not just because of the subject matter but also because of my rather intimate involvement with it. Just a few weeks after I joined Salomon Brothers, Sidney came to be with the galleys of his book in hand. He asked if I would read them for him, which of course I readily agreed to. But being exceedingly meticulous, he then added that he wanted me to read the galleys out loud to my secretary, who would also have a set."

"Charlie [Simon] explained to me that... Salomon had recruited Sidney Homer from Scudder, Stevens and Clark, where he had developed a number of analytical techniques for measuring bond values and served as a bond portfolio manager. Charlie had brought Sidney to the attention of the firm, with the hope that Sidney would establish a fixed-income research operation at Salomon. Charlie hoped that I would meet with Sidney... to discuss the possibility of serving as his assistant in the new research effort. No research unit of that kind... existed on Wall Street at the time. ...Sidney was given a free hand in creating a bond market research operation. Years later, he wrote a short... memoir... Fun with Bonds. ...Sidney was taken into the firm as a general partner when he was nearly 60... Sidney was completely different from any other partners. He was a Harvard graduate. He had an extraordinary family background. His mother...sang with ... and his father... was a composer and conductor. Sidney was related to ... and ... He liked to tell the story of his mother's reaction upon learning that her son intended to become what he called, "a bond man." "Where did we go wrong?" she wailed."

"[M]uch academic work had been done on interest-rate theory over the years, including the writings of Irving Fisher, John Maynard Keynes, and Frederick R. Macaulay. And in 1962 Sidney Homer, my mentor and partner at , was putting the finishing touches on his monumental A History of Interest Rates, which would appear the following year. Nevertheless, in those days there was remarkably little interaction between academicians and financial practitioners."

"There are only meager data on interest rates, i.e. the net opportunity cost of holding real capital. For estimates near the 1774 benchmark, see Homer and Sylla..."

"Sidney Homer was another remarkable person. In early 1961 he moved to Salomon Brothers from Scudder, Stevens, and Clark, where he had worked for many years. Late in 1961 he invited me to leave the and join him in establishing a research department at Salomon Brothers. He was my boss... from then until he retired from the firm in 1972, at age seventy. He passed away eleven years later. Although Sidney had only an undergraduate degree from Harvard, he was a scholar of the first rank. He was an innovator in flow-of-funds analysis and in investigating the behavior of bond price relationships, and of course in analyzing interest rates. His A History of Interest Rates... is still considered a standard work in the field."

"Sidney had a great historical perspective, not merely in financial matters, but also when it came to social and political developments. ...Sidney wrote with great clarity. He could close the door to his office and emerge a few hours later with a 10-page memo... that demanded little editing. I later came to appreciate his great historical sensibilities when he asked me to review and edit a draft of a book he had just completed entitled A History of Interest Rates, which he described as covering 40 centuries and 40 nations. ...Like many good writers, Sidney knew that I would spot more grammatical errors and other problems by reading the book aloud. Years later, when I decided to fund a directorship at the Salomon Center and NYU's Stern School of Business, I was eager and gratified to endow it in Sidney's name."

"Under Henry IV... Sully... consolidated the debts during a state bankruptcy into low-rate rentes. He avoided floating debt, introduced economy, improved the national finances, and brought on a period of prosperity."

"In France the Italian bankers to the Crown were ruined in a more orderly and fastidious way. The power of France grew under Louis XIII... and Louis XIV... and these absolute monarchs were strong enough to exploit their creditors. There were, however, a number of enlightened efforts by French finance ministers to reform the state credit, and in the course of these France made some valuable contributions to techniques of government finance."

"In 1610 a new period of mismanagement began. The aggressive foreign policy of Richelieu... and the extravagance of the court led again to a new and huge floating debt. At this time the term “partisans” was coined: people who had partis, money transactions with the government, and thus became its unconditional adherents."

"Spain, recently the most powerful of European states, sank into financial decrepitude in spite of her empire in the New World and in spite of inpouring gold and silver. Spanish state bankruptcies occurred about every twenty years: 1607–1627–1649. ...Spain’s imported gold and silver were pledged in advance to Genoese bankers."

"The structure of trade and industry changed. Europe now had great capitalists possessed of large and diversified interests. These men were not local merchants; they were no longer dependent on the restrictive regulations of the town burghers. They could move their operations from place to place: to the country or to other towns. ...They began to operate on credit on a large scale and to speculate. They supported royalty and financed wars."

"While the pledged Spanish gold and silver flowed to , Spain sank to a copper standard of currency. Often money was lacking to supply the king’s table. Revenues were pledged five to ten years in advance. At times it turned out that Crown property had been pledged several times. ...By 1627 nearly everybody in Genoa had an interest in Spanish claims, and the ruin there became general. The big Genoese banks reached the end of their resources. The s who had clung to old Spanish claims dating back to the sixteenth century were now completely ruined. Spain never recovered her international political and financial power."

"Another French state bankruptcy in 1648 eliminated the Italian bankers, mostly Florentines. State revenues by that time had been anticipated three years ahead by borrowing from the partisans who charged the Crown ruinous rates. Even the rentes (perpetual loans) were not always serviced in full. From 1639 French rentes enjoyed a market on the new Paris Exchange."

"Each city struck its own coinage. Every foreign transaction required a money-changing transaction. Many cities engaged in unscrupulous alloying. ...Athens had the advantage of the silver mines of [in south-eastern ]. ...Even in times of tragic national disaster, when the treasury was empty and Attica occupied by an enemy, Athens refused to debase this silver coinage. As a consequence, the Athenian "owl" became current in all markets and an article for export. It remained a most acceptable currency throughout the Mediterranean for 600 years, long after the disastrous defeat of Athens in the ... This tragic event, immortalized by Thucydides and mourned... by lovers of human excellence, was not a turning point in the financial history of Greece."

"In 508 B.C. a democracy was established in Athens. From this time on Athens so rapidly outdistanced other Greek cities in trade and finance that the history of Greek credit and interest rates is largely... a history of Athenian credit and... interest rates."

"Before the Persian wars... the hoarding of coin was general... Cities and temples, especially the Temple of Delphi, accumulated treasure. Temples made loans to states and to individuals. But after 450 B.C., investment in productive capital became common. ...land, ...rental housing, slaves let out for hire, business investments ...Even Socrates... had a friend to whom he entrusted his investments, and loans bearing interest."

"There are many references in the Iliad and the Odyssey to the use of the ox as a unit of account. The Homeric Greeks had been nomads in the grassy steppes. ...One of the later reforms of Solon, 594 B.C., was the recomputation of fines and bounties in coined money instead of cattle."

"Cattle breeding has supplied us with many financial terms used in later money economies. For example, there is our own word capital and our term pecuniary, from pecus, meaning a “flock” in Latin. Sumerians used the word mas for calves and for interest. The Egyptian term ms, meaning interest, is derived from the verb msj, which means “to give birth.” Early Greeks, in fact, valued their precious metals in terms of cattle."

"Solon's reforms were radical and for the most part they endured. ...All those enslaved for debt were freed; those sold abroad for debt were redeemed at state expense. All restrictions were removed from rates of interest and from loan transactions, except that personal slavery for debts was forbidden. Political power was reapportioned according to property. The drachma was devalued by one quarter. Weights and measures were increased in size. Citizenship was granted to immigrants who were skilled artisans. Judging from these reforms and their acceptance, the economic crisis of 594 B.C. must have been severe..."

"The victories of the Turks and the interruption of the Oriental trade route through the Mediterranean led to the discovery of alternative trade routes. This ultimately deprived the Italians of their central trading position. Nevertheless, in this century Italian prosperity continued..."