The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Belling the cat: Eli F. Heckscher on the gold standard as a discipline device

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

Unlike Knut Wicksell, Eli Heckscher did not believe the time had arrived for “managed money” to replace the gold standard after World War I. The war had shown that only a gold standard could bind the central bank to a time-consistent policy with reasonable price stability. Heckscher likened the problem of reinstating the gold standard to “Belling the cat” in Aesop’s fable. When the international gold standard crumbled in the Great Depression, he supported the Swedish price stabilization regime as a temporary system. Heckscher was an early discoverer of the time-consistency problem in monetary policy and hence stressed the importance of the institutional framework of monetary policy.

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Pages

39-59

Publication/Series

History of Political Economy

Volume

45

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Duke University Press

Topic

  • Economics

Keywords

  • Heckscher
  • time-consistent policy
  • devaluation
  • deflation
  • gold standard

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1527-1919