History 250         Fall 2008                Tooley

inflation title                                                 ac logo


Schedule

(The readings listed should be read in advance of the class listed.  You should also come armed with a one-paragraph summary or precise for each reading.)


Sept 3--Introduction


Definition and Theory

Sept 8—Definitions. 
Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Overview of BLS Statistics on Inflation and Prices"
http://www.bls.gov/bls/inflation.htm

David Ranson, "Inflation," Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Inflation.html

Frank Shostak, "Defining Inflation"
http://mises.org/story/908

Sept 10--R. A. Radford, "The Economic Organisation of a P.O.W. Camp,"
Economica, New Series, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Nov., 1945), pp. 189-201.
GET THIS ON JSTOR

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action:  "XVI.  Prices--1. The Pricing Process"
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap16sec1.asp
or the main Human Action page:  http://mises.org/resources/3250

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Good Society (1996), Chapter 6—"Inflation,"  pp. 43-49.  Find this on Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=RsypCJwcLtUC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=john+kenneth+galbraith+inflation&source=web&ots=dFBSAZtTK1&sig=nLvgKklpNrhR_senat7Hb1p5-sg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA43,M1

Sept 15--Henry Hazlitt, "What You Should Know About Inflation"
http://mises.org/story/2914

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action:  "XX.  Interest, Credit Expansion, and the Trade Cycle," 570-586 (from "The Difference Between Credit Expansion and Simple Inflation" to the end of the chapter).
http://mises.org/resources/3250

Wikipedia entry on "Keynsian Economics"  (Since I am adding  the article below, feel free merely to skim the Wikipedia article (no paragraph needed on this one:  devote your time to the Raico article)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics

new addition, just out in time for class:  Ralph Raico, "Was Keynes a Liberal?" Independent Review, Fall 2008. 
http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=704

Sept 17--Friedrich von Hayek, "Choice in Currency:  A Way to Stop Inflation,"
http://www.asiaing.com/choice-in-currency-a-way-to-stop-inflation-by-f.a.-hayek-1976.html
Look down to the choices at the bottom of the screen:  go either to the web version or the pdf.

Friedman, "The Role of Monetary Policy," The American Economic Review, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Mar., 1968), pp. 1-17
http://www.jstor.org.webster.austincollege.edu/stable/1831652?seq=2

Ludwig von Mises, Theory of Money and Credit, Chapter 13 "Monetary Policy," sections 3 ("Inflationism") through 7 ("Excursus:  The Concepts...") (in the original 219-240).
http://mises.org/books/Theory_Money_Credit/Contents.aspx
 
Ludwig von Mises, "Inflation and You," from Economic Freedom and Interventionism
http://mises.org/efandi/ch18.asp
Sept 22—Exam on Concepts.

Monetary Systems in Early Modern Europe

Sept 24--Frederic C. Lane, "Venetian Bankers, 1496-1533: A Study in the Early Stages of Deposit Banking," The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Apr., 1937), pp. 187-206
http://www.jstor.org.webster.austincollege.edu/stable/1824517?&Search=yes&term=loans&term=fugger&term=inflation&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfugger%2Binflation%2Bloans%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%26wc%3Don&item=3&ttl=30&returnArticleService=showArticle

Carla Rahn Phillips, "Time and Duration:  A Model for the Economy of Early Modern Spain," The American Historical Review 92 (June 1987):  531-562. 
Get this on JSTOR

Article on Henry VIII's "Great Debasement"
http://e-articles.info/e/a/title/The-Great-Debasement/

Sept 29—NO CLASS--First Paper Due at 4:30 in my hallway mailbox, SH.

Oct 1--Jesus Huerta de Soto, "New Light on the Prehistory of the Theory of Banking and the School of Salamanca," The Review of Austrian Economics (1996)
http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/RAE9_2_4.pdf

Read Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Ancien Regime (1998), 280 (from mid-page, "How, briefly..." to end of p. 301.  On Google Books.
http://books.google.com/books?id=p_-uaitmEv8C&pg=PA287&lpg=PA287&dq=john+law+affair+france&source=web&ots=xEvezg3ZuI&sig=XYL7YIsSDY9iHN2cZIT72eYPYWw&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA280,M1

Oct 6--Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, chapter 1, "The Money Mania.--The Mississippi Scheme," pp. 1-75 (the full chapter).
http://www.econlib.org/library/Mackay/macEx.html

Oct 8—NO CLASS.  Second Paper Due at 4:30 Friday (Oct 10) in my hallway box in SH.

Oct 13--Antoin E. Murphy, "Law and Turgot:  The Importance of Money" (2004).
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/frnit/pdfs_gimon/murphy.pdf

Andrew Dickson White.  Fiat Money Inflation in France
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6949

Murray Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, vol. 2 (1999), pp. 123-140. 
http://www.mises.org/books/conceived2.pdf


Murray Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, vol. 4 (1999), pp. 373-383.

http://www.mises.org/books/conceived4.pdf



From the Nineteenth Century to World War I


Oct 15—Murray Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money?
excerpt:  http://mises.org/money/4s1.asp

Wesley C. Mitchell, "Greenbacks and the Cost of the Civil War," The Journal of Political Economy (1897).
GET THIS ON JSTOR

Bruce G. Carruthers and Sarah Babb, "The Color of Money:  Greenbacks and Gold in Postbellum America," The American Journal of Sociology v. 101 (1996).
GET THIS ON JSTOR

Oct 20--Wikipedia entry on "Gold Standard"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard

Michael D. Bordo, "Gold Standard" entry in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GoldStandard.html

Be reading Murray Rothbard, The Case Against the Fed.
Download pdf from Mises.org, the first title listed:
http://mises.org/literature.aspx?action=author&Id=299

Oct 22—Murray Rothbard, The Case Against the Fed, 70-129.
http://mises.org/literature.aspx?action=author&Id=299


The World Wars:  Inflation, Boom, Depression


Oct 27--Russell Ally, "War and Gold--The Bank of England, the London Gold Market and South Africa's Gold, 1914-19," Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Jun., 1991)
GET THIS ON JSTOR

T. Hunt Tooley, "Merchants of Death Revisited:  Armaments, Bankers, and the First World War," Journal of Libertarian Studies, 2005
http://mises.org/journals/jls/19_1/19_1_4.pdf

Oct 29--Hans F. Sennholz, "Hyperinflation in Germany"
http://mises.org/story/2347

Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, Edward Dimendberg, The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, pp. 60-68.
Please  read this on Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=J4A1gt4-VCsC&dq=weimar+republic+sourcebook&pg=PP1&ots=VUck7giG25&sig=1VtJ4RDQsWGxAwtyuZqLv6OBP6Y&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA60,M1

Wikipedia entry for Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economic_Consequences_of_the_Peace

John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (read chapter VI.:  "Europe After the Treaty")
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15776/15776-8.txt

Nov 3--Frank Graham, Exchange, Prices, and Production in Hyper-Inflation: Germany 1920-1923, "Part I:  Historical Background," pp. 1-48.
http://www.mises.org/books/hyperinflation.pdf

Nov 5--Frank Graham, Exchange, Prices, and Production in Hyper-Inflation: Germany 1920-1923, "Part I:  Historical Background," pp. 48-94.
http://www.mises.org/books/hyperinflation.pdf

Nov 10—Constantino Bresciani-Turroni, The Economics of Inflation:  A Study of Currency Depreciation in Postwar Germany (pp. 287-360)
http://mises.org/books/economicsofinflation.pdf

Nov 12--William H. Hubbard, "The New Inflation History," The Journal of Modern History, (Sep., 1990), pp. 552-569
GET THIS ON JSTOR

Blog comment by a civilian—summary of Adam Fergusson's When Money Dies.
http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/2006/11/mark-gleich-mark_19.html

Nov 17—Murray Rothbard, America's Great Depression, 3-29, 85-116.
http://mises.org/rothbard/agd.pdf

Nov 19—Murray Rothbard, America's Great Depression, 185-207
http://mises.org/rothbard/agd.pdf

Robert Higgs, "War Prosperity?  A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s," The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 41-60
GET THIS ON JSTOR


World War II and After


Nov 24--Heinz Sauermann, "The Consequences of the Currency Reform in Western Germany," The Review of Politics, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1950)
GET THIS ON JSTOR

Peter R. Senn, "Cigarettes As Currency," The Journal of Finance, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Sep., 1951), pp. 329-332
GET THIS ON JSTOR

Gail E. Makinen.  "The Greek Hyperinflation and Stabilization of 1943-1946," The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Sep., 1986)
GET THIS ON JSTOR

Wikipedia entry on "Stagflation"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation

Brad DeLong, "The Inflation of the 1970s"
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Econ_Articles/theinflationofthes.html


High Inflations in the eighties/nineties/2000s


Dec 1--Read this straight description of the Argentine inflationary waves from an Economics course:

http://academic.reed.edu/economics/course_pages/201_f06/Cases/money_and_inflation_in_arg.htm

Another Report on current Argentinian problems:
http://www.euromonitor.com/Mounting_inflation_in_Argentina_threatens_business_environment

Yonca Ozdemir, "A study in comparative inflation in Argentina Brazil Israel Mexico and Turkey," a paper from the International Studies Association meeting, 2004.
http://www.allacademic.com/one/isa/isa04/index.php?cmd=isa04_search&offset=0&limit=5&multi_search_search_mode=publication&multi_search_publication_fulltext_mod=fulltext&textfield_submit=true&search_module=multi_search&search=Search&search_field=title_idx&fulltext_search=Politics+of+Inflation%3A+A+Comparative+Study+of+Argentina%2C+Brazil%2C+Israel%2C+Mexico+and+Turkey
(HIT THE PDF IN PARENTHESES BELOW THE TITLE)

News Item from Business News, 21 Aug. 08:  "Crippled by inflation, Zimbabwe doctors strike for better pay"
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1425981.php/Crippled_by_inflation_Zimbabwe_doctors_strike_for_bettter_pay

Official take on Zimbabwe inflation from the (Zimbabwe) Herald:  "Zim's inflation not that bad"
http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=778&cat=8
(comment:  the Zimbabwe Herald [a government newspaper] apparently erased this story from their website.  It was an extended attempt to downplay Zimbabwe's devasting inflationary regime by saying, in effect, "well, it was worse in Weimar Germany... so it is not really that bad here." 


Inflation in modern times:  Considerations


Dec 3--Raj M. Desai, Anders Olofsgard, and Tarik M. Yousef, "Democracy, Inequality, and Inflation," American Political Science Review 97 (Aug. 2003).
FIND THIS ON JSTOR

Guido  Hülsmann,   "The Cultural and Spiritual Legacy of Inflation"
http://mises.org/story/1570

Hans Sennholz, "The Many Evils of Inflation"
http://mises.org/story/1846

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, "War and Inflation"
http://mises.org/story/3010


Final Paper due at 4:30 on Friday, Dec. 5, in my hallway box in SH

Final is:  Dec. 10 at 3:00.

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