[p.292]
Chapter 21
THE THEORY OF PRICES
I
So long as economists are concerned with what is called the Theory of Value,
they have been accustomed to teach that prices are governed by the conditions of
supply and demand; and, in particular, changes in marginal cost and the
elasticity of short-period supply have played a prominent part. But when they
pass in volume II, or more often in a separate treatise, to the Theory of Money
and Prices, we hear no more of these homely but intelligible concepts and move
into a world where prices are governed by the quantity of money, by its
income-velocity, by the velocity of circulation relatively to the volume of
transactions, by hoarding, by forced saving, by inflation and deflation et
hoc genus omne; and little or no attempt is made to relate these vaguer
phrases to our former notions of the elasticities of supply and demand. If we
reflect on what we are being taught and try to rationalise it, in the simpler
discussions it seems that the elasticity of supply must have become zero and
demand proportional to the quantity of money; whilst in the more sophisticated
we are lost in a haze where nothing is clear and everything is possible. We have
all of us become used to finding ourselves sometimes on the one side of the moon
and sometimes on the other, without knowing what route or journey connects them,
related, apparently, after the fashion of our waking and our dreaming lives. [p.293]
One of the objects of the foregoing chapters has been to escape from this
double life and to bring the theory of prices as a whole back to close contact
with the theory of value. The division of Economics between the Theory of Value
and Distribution on the one hand and the Theory of Money on the other hand is, I
think, a false division. The right dichotomy is, I suggest, between the Theory
of the Individual Industry or Firm and of the rewards and the distribution
between different uses of a given quantity of resources on the one hand,
and the Theory of Output and Employment as a whole on the other hand. So
long as we limit ourselves to the study of the individual industry or firm on
the assumption that the aggregate quantity of employed resources is constant,
and, provisionally, that the conditions of other industries or firms are
unchanged, it is true that we are not concerned with the significant
characteristics of money. But as soon as we pass to the problem of what
determines output and employment as a whole, we require the complete theory of a
Monetary Economy.
Or, perhaps, we might make our line of division between the theory of
stationary equilibrium and the theory of shifting equilibrium¾meaning
by the latter the theory of a system in which changing views about the future
are capable of influencing the present situation. For the importance of money
essentially flows from its being a link between the present and the future.
We can consider what distribution of resources between different uses will be
consistent with equilibrium under the influence of normal economic motives in a
world in which our views concerning the future are fixed and reliable in all
respects;¾with a further division, perhaps, between
an economy which is unchanging and one subject to change, but where all things
are foreseen from the beginning. Or we can pass from this simplified
propaedeutic to the problems of the real world in which our previous
expectations are liable to disappoint-[p.294]ment and expectations
concerning the future affect what we do to-day. It is when we have made this
transition that the peculiar properties of money as a link between the present
and the future must enter into our calculations. But, although the theory of
shifting equilibrium must necessarily be pursued in terms of a monetary economy,
it remains a theory of value and distribution and not a separate "theory of
money". Money in its significant attributes is, above all, a subtle device
for linking the present to the future; and we cannot even begin to discuss the
effect of changing expectations on current activities except in monetary terms.
We cannot get rid of money even by abolishing gold and silver and legal tender
instruments. So long as there exists any durable asset, it is capable of
possessing monetary attributes[1] and,
therefore, of giving rise to the characteristic problems of a monetary economy.
II
In a single industry its particular price-level depends partly on the rate of
remuneration of the factors of production which enter into its marginal cost,
and partly on the scale of output. There is no reason to modify this conclusion
when we pass to industry as a whole. The general price-level depends partly on
the rate of remuneration of the factors of production which enter into marginal
cost and partly on the scale of output as a whole, i.e. (taking equipment
and technique as given) on the volume of employment. It is true that, when we
pass to output as a whole, the costs of production in any industry partly depend
on the output of other industries. But the more significant change, of which we
have to take account, is the effect of changes in demand both on costs
and on volume. It is on the side of demand that we have to introduce quite new
ideas when we are dealing with demand as a whole and [p.295] no longer
with the demand for a single product taken in isolation, with demand as a whole
assumed to be unchanged.
III
If we allow ourselves the simplification of assuming that the rates of
remuneration of the different factors of production which enter into marginal
cost all change in the same proportion, i.e. in the same proportion as
the wage-unit, it follows that the general price-level (taking equipment and
technique as given) depends partly on the wage-unit and partly on the volume of
employment. Hence the effect of changes in the quantity of money on the
price-level can be considered as being compounded of the effect on the wage-unit
and the effect on employment.
To elucidate the ideas involved, let us simplify our assumptions still
further, and assume (1) that all unemployed resources are homogeneous and
interchangeable in their efficiency to produce what is wanted, and (2) that the
factors of production entering into marginal cost are content with the same
money-wage so long as there is a surplus of them unemployed. In this case we
have constant returns and a rigid wage-unit, so long as there is any
unemployment. It follows that an increase in the quantity of money will have no
effect whatever on prices, so long as there is any unemployment, and that
employment will increase in exact proportion to any increase in effective demand
brought about by the increase in the quantity of money; whilst as soon as full
employment is reached, it will thenceforward be the wage-unit and prices which
will increase in exact proportion to the increase in effective demand. Thus if
there is perfectly elastic supply so long as there is unemployment, and
perfectly inelastic supply so soon as full employment is reached, and if
effective demand changes in the same proportion as the quantity of money, the Quantity
Theory of Money can [p.296] be enunciated as follows: "So long as there
is unemployment, employment will change in the same proportion as the
quantity of money; and when there is full employment, prices will change
in the same proportion as the quantity of money".
Having, however, satisfied tradition by introducing a sufficient number of
simplifying assumptions to enable us to enunciate a Quantity Theory of Money,
let us now consider the possible complications which will in fact influence
events:
(1) Effective demand will not change in exact proportion to the
quantity of money.
(2) Since resources are not homogeneous, there will be diminishing, and
not constant, returns as employment gradually increases.
(3) Since resources are not interchangeable, some commodities will
reach a condition of inelastic supply whilst there are still unemployed
resources available for the production of other commodities.
(4) The wage-unit will tend to rise, before full employment has been
reached.
(5) The remunerations of the factors entering into marginal cost will
not all change in the same proportion.
Thus we must first consider the effect of changes in the quantity of money on
the quantity of effective demand; and the increase in effective demand will,
generally speaking, spend itself partly in increasing the quantity of employment
and partly in raising the level of prices. Thus instead of constant prices in
conditions of unemployment, and of prices rising in proportion to the quantity
of money in conditions of full employment, we have in fact a condition of prices
rising gradually as employment increases. The Theory of Prices, that is to say,
the analysis of the relation between changes in the quantity of money and
changes in the price-level with a view to determining the elasticity of prices
in response to changes in the quantity of money, must, therefore, direct itself
to the five [p.297] complicating factors set forth above.
We will consider each of them in turn. But this procedure must not be allowed
to lead us into supposing that they are, strictly speaking, independent. For
example, the proportion, in which an increase in effective demand is divided in
its effect between increasing output and raising prices, may affect the way in
which the quantity of money is related to the quantity of effective demand. Or,
again, the differences in the proportions, in which the remunerations of
different factors change, may influence the relation between the quantity of
money and the quantity of effective demand. The object of our analysis is, not
to provide a machine, or method of blind manipulation, which will furnish an
infallible answer, but to provide ourselves with an organised and orderly method
of thinking out particular problems; and, after we have reached a provisional
conclusion by isolating the complicating factors one by one, we then have to go
back on ourselves and allow, as well as we can, for the probable interactions of
the factors amongst themselves. This is the nature of economic thinking. Any
other way of applying our formal principles of thought (without which, however,
we shall be lost in the wood) will lead us into error. It is a great fault of
symbolic pseudo-mathematical methods of formalising a system of economic
analysis, such as we shall set down in section vi of this chapter, that they
expressly assume strict independence between the factors involved and lose all
their cogency and authority if this hypothesis is disallowed; whereas, in
ordinary discourse, where we are not blindly manipulating but know all the time
what we are doing and what the words mean, we can keep "at the back of our heads"
the necessary reserves and qualifications and the adjustments which we shall
have to make later on, in a way in which we cannot keep complicated partial
differentials "at the back" of several pages of algebra which [p.298]
assume that they all vanish. Too large a proportion of recent "mathematical"
economics are merely concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they
rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the complexities and
interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and unhelpful
symbols.
IV
(1) The primary effect of a change in the quantity of money on the
quantity of effective demand is through its influence on the rate of interest.
If this were the only reaction, the quantitative effect could be derived from
the three elements¾(a) the schedule of
liquidity-preference which tells us by how much the rate of interest will have
to fall in order that the new money may be absorbed by willing holders, (b)
the schedule of marginal efficiencies which tells us by how much a given fall in
the rate of interest will increase investment, and (c) the investment
multiplier which tells us by how much a given increase in investment will
increase effective demand as a whole.
But this analysis, though it is valuable in introducing order and method into
our enquiry, presents a deceptive simplicity, if we forget that the three
elements (a), (b) and (c) are themselves partly dependent
on the complicating factors (2), (3), (4) and (5) which we have not yet
considered. For the schedule of liquidity-preference itself depends on how much
of the new money is absorbed into the income and industrial circulations, which
depends in turn on how much effective demand increases and how the increase is
divided between the rise of prices, the rise of wages, and the volume of output
and employment. Furthermore, the schedule of marginal efficiencies will partly
depend on the effect which the circumstances attendant on the increase in the
quantity of money have on expectations of the future monetary prospects. And
finally the multiplier will be in-[p.299]fluenced by the way in which the
new income resulting from the increased effective demand is distributed between
different classes of consumers. Nor, of course, is this list of possible
interactions complete. Nevertheless, if we have all the facts before us, we
shall have enough simultaneous equations to give us a determinate result. There
will be a determinate amount of increase in the quantity of effective demand
which, after taking everything into account, will correspond to, and be in
equilibrium with, the increase in the quantity of money. Moreover, it is only in
highly exceptional circumstances that an increase in the quantity of money will
be associated with a decrease in the quantity of effective demand.
The ratio between the quantity of effective demand and the quantity of money
closely corresponds to what is often called the "income-velocity of money";¾except
that effective demand corresponds to the income the expectation of which has set
production moving, not to the actually realised income, and to gross, not net,
income. But the "income-velocity of money" is, in itself, merely a name which
explains nothing. There is no reason to expect that it will be constant. For it
depends, as the foregoing discussion has shown, on many complex and variable
factors. The use of this term obscures, I think, the real character of the
causation, and has led to nothing but confusion.
(2) As we have shown above (p. 42), the
distinction between diminishing and constant returns partly depends on whether
workers are remunerated in strict proportion to their efficiency. If so, we
shall have constant labour-costs (in terms of the wage-unit) when employment
increases. But if the wage of a given grade of labourers is uniform irrespective
of the efficiency of the individuals, we shall have rising labour-costs,
irrespective of the efficiency of the equipment. Moreover, if equipment is
non-homogeneous and some part of it involves a greater prime cost per [p.300]
unit of output, we shall have increasing marginal prime costs over and above any
increase due to increasing labour-costs.
Hence, in general, supply price will increase as output from a given
equipment is increased. Thus increasing output will be associated with rising
prices, apart from any change in the wage-unit.
(3) Under (2) we have been contemplating the possibility of supply
being imperfectly elastic. If there is a perfect balance in the respective
quantities of specialised unemployed resources, the point of full employment
will be reached for all of them simultaneously. But, in general, the demand for
some services and commodities will reach a level beyond which their supply is,
for the time being, perfectly inelastic, whilst in other directions there is
still a substantial surplus of resources without employment. Thus as output
increases, a series of "bottle-necks" will be successively reached, where the
supply of particular commodities ceases to be elastic and their prices have to
rise to whatever level is necessary to divert demand into other directions.
It is probable that the general level of prices will not rise very much as
output increases, so long as there are available efficient unemployed resources
of every type. But as soon as output has increased sufficiently to begin to
reach the "bottle-necks", there is likely to be a sharp rise in the prices of
certain commodities.
Under this heading, however, as also under heading (2), the elasticity of
supply partly depends on the elapse of time. If we assume a sufficient interval
for the quantity of equipment itself to change, the elasticities of supply will
be decidedly greater eventually. Thus a moderate change in effective demand,
coming on a situation where there is widespread unemployment, may spend itself
very little in raising prices and mainly in increasing employment; whilst a
larger change, which, being unforeseen, causes some temporary [p.301]
"bottle-necks" to be reached, will spend itself in raising prices, as
distinct from employment, to a greater extent at first than subsequently.
(4) That the wage-unit may tend to rise before full employment has been
reached, requires little comment or explanation. Since each group of workers
will gain, cet. par., by a rise in its own wages, there is naturally for
all groups a pressure in this direction, which entrepreneurs will be more ready
to meet when they are doing better business. For this reason a proportion of any
increase in effective demand is likely to be absorbed in satisfying the upward
tendency of the wage-unit.
Thus, in addition to the final critical point of full employment at which
money-wages have to rise, in response to an increasing effective demand in terms
of money, fully in proportion to the rise in the prices of wage-goods, we have a
succession of earlier semi-critical points at which an increasing effective
demand tends to raise money-wages though not fully in proportion to the rise in
the price of wage-goods; and similarly in the case of a decreasing effective
demand. In actual experience the wage-unit does not change continuously in terms
of money in response to every small change in effective demand; but
discontinuously. These points of discontinuity are determined by the psychology
of the workers and by the policies of employers and trade unions. In an open
system, where they mean a change relatively to wage-costs elsewhere, and in a
trade cycle, where even in a closed system they may mean a change relatively to
expected wage-costs in the future, they can be of considerable practical
significance. These points, where a further increase in effective demand in
terms of money is liable to cause a discontinuous rise in the wage-unit, might
be deemed, from a certain point of view, to be positions of semi-inflation,
having some analogy (though a very imperfect one) to the absolute inflation (cf.
p. 303 below) [p.302] which ensues on an increase in effective demand in
circumstances of full employment. They have, moreover, a good deal of historical
importance. But they do not readily lend themselves to theoretical
generalisations.
(5) Our first simplification consisted in assuming that the
remunerations of the various factors entering into marginal cost all change in
the same proportion. But in fact the rates of remuneration of different factors
in terms of money will show varying degrees of rigidity and they may also have
different elasticities of supply in response to changes in the money-rewards
offered. If it were not for this, we could say that the price-level is
compounded of two factors, the wage-unit and the quantity of employment.
Perhaps the most important element in marginal cost which is likely to change
in a different proportion from the wage-unit, and also to fluctuate within much
wider limits, is marginal user cost. For marginal user cost may increase sharply
when employment begins to improve, if (as will probably be the case) the
increasing effective demand brings a rapid change in the prevailing expectation
as to the date when the replacement of equipment will be necessary.
Whilst it is for many purposes a very useful first approximation to assume
that the rewards of all the factors entering into marginal prime-cost change in
the same proportion as the wage-unit, it might be better, perhaps, to take a
weighted average of the rewards of the factors entering into marginal
prime-cost, and call this the cost-unit. The cost-unit, or, subject to
the above approximation, the wage-unit, can thus be regarded as the essential
standard of value; and the price-level, given the state of technique and
equipment, will depend partly on the cost-unit, and partly on the scale of
output, increasing, where output increases, more than in proportion to
any increase in the cost-unit, in accordance with the principle of diminishing
returns in the short [p.303] period. We have full employment when output
has risen to a level at which the marginal return from a representative unit of
the factors of production has fallen to the minimum figure at which a quantity
of the factors sufficient to produce this output is available.
V
When a further increase in the quantity of effective demand produces no
further increase in output and entirely spends itself on an increase in the
cost-unit fully proportionate to the increase in effective demand, we have
reached a condition which might be appropriately designated as one of true
inflation. Up to this point the effect of monetary expansion is entirely a
question of degree, and there is no previous point at which we can draw a
definite line and declare that conditions of inflation have set in. Every
previous increase in the quantity of money is likely, in so far as it increases
effective demand, to spend itself partly in increasing the cost-unit and partly
in increasing output.
It appears, therefore, that we have a sort of asymmetry on the two sides of
the critical level above which true inflation sets in. For a contraction of
effective demand below the critical level will reduce its amount measured in
cost-units; whereas an expansion of effective demand beyond this level will not,
in general, have the effect of increasing its amount in terms of cost-units.
This result follows from the assumption that the factors of production, and in
particular the workers, are disposed to resist a reduction in their
money-rewards, and that there is no corresponding motive to resist an increase.
This assumption is, however, obviously well founded in the facts, due to the
circumstance that a change, which is not an all-round change, is beneficial to
the special factors affected when it is upward and harmful when it is downward.
If, on the contrary, money-wages were to fall with-[p.304]out limit
whenever there was a tendency for less than full employment, the asymmetry
would, indeed, disappear. But in that case there would be no resting-place below
full employment until either the rate of interest was incapable of falling
further or wages were zero. In fact we must have some factor, the value
of which in terms of money is, if not fixed, at least sticky, to give us any
stability of values in a monetary system.
The view that any increase in the quantity of money is inflationary
(unless we mean by inflationary merely that prices are rising) is
bound up with the underlying assumption of the classical theory that we are always
in a condition where a reduction in the real rewards of the factors of
production will lead to a curtailment in their supply.
VI
With the aid of the notation introduced in Chapter 20
we can, if we wish, express the substance of the above in symbolic form.
Let us write MV = D where M is the quantity
of money, V its income-velocity (this definition differing in the minor
respects indicated above from the usual definition) and D the effective
demand. If, then, V is constant, prices will change in the same
proportion as the quantity of money provided that ep ( = (Ddp)
/ (pdD)) is unity. This condition is satisfied (see p.286
above) if eo = 0 or if ew
= 1. The condition ew = 1 means that the
wage-unit in terms of money rises in the same proportion as the effective
demand, since ew = (DdW) / (WdD);
and the condition eo = 0 means that output no
longer shows any response to a further increase in effective demand, since eo
= (DdO) / (OdD). Output in either case will be
unaltered.
Next, we can deal with the case where income-velocity is not constant, by
introducing yet a further [p.305] elasticity, namely the elasticity of
effective demand in response to changes in the quantity of money,
MdD
ed = ¾¾¾¾.
DdM
This gives us
Mdp
¾¾¾¾ = ep · ed
where ep = 1 - ee
· eo(1 - ew);
pdM
so that
e = ed -
(1 - ew)ed · ee·
eo
= ed(1 -
ee · eo + ee · eo
· ew)
where e without suffix (= (Mdp) / (pdM))
stands for the apex of this pyramid and measures the response of money-prices to
changes in the quantity of money.
Since this last expression gives us the proportionate change in prices in
response to a change in the quantity of money, it can be regarded as a
generalised statement of the Quantity Theory of Money. I do not myself attach
much value to manipulations of this kind; and I would repeat the warning, which
I have given above, that they involve just as much tacit assumption as to what
variables are taken as independent (partial differentials being ignored
throughout) as does ordinary discourse, whilst I doubt if they carry us any
further than ordinary discourse can. Perhaps the best purpose served by writing
them down is to exhibit the extreme complexity of the relationship between
prices and the quantity of money, when we attempt to express it in a formal
manner. It is, however, worth pointing out that, of the four terms ed,
ew, ee and eo upon which
the effect on prices of changes in the quantity of money depends, ed
stands for the liquidity factors which determine the demand for money in each
situation, ew for the labour factors (or, more strictly, the
factors entering into prime-cost) which determine the extent to which
money-wages are raised as employment increases, and ee and eo
for the physical factors which determine the [p.306] rate of decreasing
returns as more employment is applied to the existing equipment.
If the public hold a constant proportion of their income in money, ed
= 1; if money-wages are fixed, ew = 0; if
there are constant returns throughout so that marginal return equals average
return, ee eo = 1; and if there
is full employment either of labour or of equipment, ee eo
= 0.
Now e = 1, if ed = 1, and ew
= 1; or if ed = 1, ew
= 0 and ee · eo =
0; or if ed = 1 and eo =
0. And obviously there is a variety of other special eases in which e
= 1. But in general e is not unity; and it is, perhaps, safe to
make the generalisation that on plausible assumptions relating to the real
world, and excluding the case of a "flight from the currency" in which ed
and ew become large, e is, as a rule, less than unity.
VII
So far, we have been primarily concerned with the way in which changes in the
quantity of money affect prices in the short period. But in the long run is
there not some simpler relationship?
This is a question for historical generalisation rather than for pure theory.
If there is some tendency to a measure of long-run uniformity in the state of
liquidity-preference, there may well be some sort of rough relationship between
the national income and the quantity of money required to satisfy
liquidity-preference, taken as a mean over periods of pessimism and optimism
together. There may be, for example, some fairly stable proportion of the
national income more than which people will not readily keep in the shape of
idle balances for long periods together, provided the rate of interest exceeds a
certain psychological minimum; so that if the quantity of money beyond what is
required in the active circulation is in excess of this proportion of the
national income, there will be a tendency sooner or [p.307] later for the
rate of interest to fall to the neighbourhood of this minimum. The falling rate
of interest will then, cet. par., increase effective demand, and the
increasing effective demand will reach one or more of the semi-critical points
at which the wage-unit will tend to show a discontinuous rise, with a
corresponding effect on prices. The opposite tendencies will set in if the
quantity of surplus money is an abnormally low proportion of the national
income. Thus the net effect of fluctuations over a period of time will be to
establish a mean figure in conformity with the stable proportion between the
national income and the quantity of money to which the psychology of the public
tends sooner or later to revert.
These tendencies will probably work with less friction in the upward than in
the downward direction. But if the quantity of money remains very deficient for
a long time, the escape will be normally found in changing the monetary standard
or the monetary system so as to raise the quantity of money, rather than in
forcing down the wage-unit and thereby increasing the burden of debt. Thus the
very long-run course of prices has almost always been upward. For when money is
relatively abundant, the wage-unit rises; and when money is relatively scarce,
some means is found to increase the effective quantity of money.
During the nineteenth century, the growth of population and of invention, the
opening-up of new lands, the state of confidence and the frequency of war over
the average of (say) each decade seem to have been sufficient, taken in
conjunction with the propensity to consume, to establish a schedule of the
marginal efficiency of capital which allowed a reasonably satisfactory average
level of employment to be compatible with a rate of interest high enough to be
psychologically acceptable to wealth-owners. There is evidence that for a period
of almost one hundred and fifty years the long-run typical rate of interest in
the leading financial [p.308] centres was about 5 per cent., and the
gilt-edged rate between 3 and 3½ per cent.; and that these rates of interest
were modest enough to encourage a rate of investment consistent with an average
of employment which was not intolerably low. Sometimes the wage-unit, but more
often the monetary standard or the monetary system (in particular through the
development of bank-money), would be adjusted so as to ensure that the quantity
of money in terms of wage-units was sufficient to satisfy normal
liquidity-preference at rates of interest which were seldom much below the
standard rates indicated above. The tendency of the wage-unit was, as usual,
steadily upwards on the whole, but the efficiency of labour was also increasing.
Thus the balance of forces was such as to allow a fair measure of stability of
prices;¾the highest quinquennial average for
Sauerbeck's index number between 1820 and 1914 was only 50 per cent. above the
lowest. This was not accidental. It is rightly described as due to a balance of
forces in an age when individual groups of employers were strong enough to
prevent the wage-unit from rising much faster than the efficiency of production,
and when monetary systems were at the same time sufficiently fluid and
sufficiently conservative to provide an average supply of money in terms of
wage-units which allowed to prevail the lowest average rate of interest readily
acceptable by wealth-owners under the influence of their liquidity-preferences.
The average level of employment was, of course, substantially below full
employment, but not so intolerably below it as to provoke revolutionary changes.
To-day and presumably for the future the schedule of the marginal efficiency
of capital is, for a variety of reasons, much lower than it was in the
nineteenth century. The acuteness and the peculiarity of our contemporary
problem arises, therefore, out of the possibility that the average rate of
interest which will allow a reasonable average level of employment is one [p.309]
so unacceptable to wealth-owners that it cannot be readily established merely by
manipulating the quantity of money. So long as a tolerable level of employment
could be attained on the average of one or two or three decades merely by
assuring an adequate supply of money in terms of wage-units, even the nineteenth
century could find a way. If this was our only problem now¾if
a sufficient degree of devaluation is all we need¾we,
to-day, would certainly find a way.
But the most stable, and the least easily shifted, element in our
contemporary economy has been hitherto, and may prove to be in future, the
minimum rate of interest acceptable to the generality of wealth-owners.[1]
If a tolerable level of employment requires a rate of interest much below the
average rates which ruled in the nineteenth century, it is most doubtful whether
it can be achieved merely by manipulating the quantity of money. From the
percentage gain, which the schedule of marginal efficiency of capital allows the
borrower to expect to earn, there has to be deducted (1) the cost of bringing
borrowers and lenders together, (2) income and sur-taxes and (3) the allowance
which the lender requires to cover his risk and uncertainty, before we arrive at
the net yield available to tempt the wealth-owner to sacrifice his liquidity.
If, in conditions of tolerable average employment, this net yield turns out to
be infinitesimal, time-honoured methods may prove unavailing.
To return to our immediate subject, the long-run relationship between the
national income and the quantity of money will depend on liquidity-preferences.
And the long-run stability or instability of prices will depend on the strength
of the upward trend of the wage-unit (or, more precisely, of the cost-unit)
compared with the rate of increase in the efficiency of the productive system.
Footnotes: [p.294] 1 - Cf.
Chapter 17 above.[back to text]
[p.309] 1 - Cf. the
nineteenth-century saying, quoted by Bagehot,
that "John Bull can stand many things, but he cannot stand 2 per
cent." [back to text]
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