IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v25y2011i3p217-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Retrospectives: Hume on Money, Commerce, and the Science of Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Margaret Schabas
  • Carl Wennerlind

Abstract

David Hume (1711-1776) is arguably the most esteemed philosopher to have written in the English language. During his lifetime, however, Hume was as well if not better known for his contributions to political economy, particularly for the essays published as the Political Discourses (1752). Hume left his mark on the economic thought of the physiocrats, the classical economists, and the American Federalists. Adam Smith, who met Hume circa 1750, was his closest friend and interlocutor for some 25 years. Among modern economists, Hume's essays on money and trade have informed theorists of both Keynesian and Monetarist persuasions. In this essay, we begin by discussing Hume's monetary economics, and then spell out his theory of economic development, noting his qualified enthusiasm for the modern commercial system. We end with an assessment of his views on the scientific standing of economics, specifically his counterintuitive argument that economics could be epistemologically superior to physics.

Suggested Citation

  • Margaret Schabas & Carl Wennerlind, 2011. "Retrospectives: Hume on Money, Commerce, and the Science of Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 217-230, Summer.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:25:y:2011:i:3:p:217-30
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.25.3.217
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.25.3.217
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Friedman, Milton, 1975. "25 Years after the Rediscovery of Money: What Have We Learned? Discussion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(2), pages 176-179, May.
    2. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1996. "Nobel Lecture: Monetary Neutrality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 661-682, August.
    3. John F. Berdell, 1996. "Innovation and Trade: David Hume and the Case for Freer Trade," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 28(1), pages 107-126, Spring.
    4. Poovey, Mary, 2008. "Genres of the Credit Economy," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226675336, January.
    5. Poovey, Mary, 2008. "Genres of the Credit Economy," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226675329.
    6. Cesarano, Filippo, 1998. "Hume's specie-flow mechanism and classical monetary theory: An alternative interpretation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 173-186, June.
    7. Carl Wennerlind, 2005. "David Hume's Monetary Theory Revisited: Was He Really a Quantity Theorist and an Inflationist?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 223-252, February.
    8. Carl Wennerlind, 2001. "The Link between David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature and His Fiduciary Theory of Money," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 33(1), pages 139-160, Spring.
    9. Wennerlind, Carl, 2011. "Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674047389, Spring.
    10. Michael I. Duke, 1979. "David Hume and Monetary Adjustment," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 572-587, Winter.
    11. Thomas Mayer, 1980. "David Hume and Monetarism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(1), pages 89-101.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Micocci, 2014. "Unusual Humean issues in materialistic political economy," The Journal of Philosophical Economics, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The Journal of Philosophical Economics, vol. 7(2), May.
    2. Madarász, Aladár, 2012. "Adósság, pénz és szabadság [Taxation, money and freedom]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(5), pages 457-507.
    3. Laurent Le Maux, 2014. "Cantillon And Hume On Money And Banking: The Foundations Of Two Theoretical Traditions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 956-970, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Madarász, Aladár, 2012. "Adósság, pénz és szabadság [Taxation, money and freedom]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(5), pages 457-507.
    2. Laurent Le Maux, 2014. "Cantillon And Hume On Money And Banking: The Foundations Of Two Theoretical Traditions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 956-970, December.
    3. Braun, Benjamin, 2016. "Speaking to the people? Money, trust, and central bank legitimacy in the age of quantitative easing," MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/12, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Carl Wennerlind, 2005. "David Hume's Monetary Theory Revisited: Was He Really a Quantity Theorist and an Inflationist?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 223-252, February.
    5. Taylor C. Nelms, 2012. "The Zombie Bank And The Magic Of Finance," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 231-246, May.
    6. J. Robert Subrick, 2010. "Money is Non-neutral," Chapters, in: Peter J. Boettke (ed.), Handbook on Contemporary Austrian Economics, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Alissa G. Karl, 2013. "‘Bank Talk,’ Performativity And Financial Markets," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 63-77, February.
    8. Stuart Holland & Teresa Carla Oliveira, 2013. "Missing Links: Hume, Smith, Kant and Economic Methodology," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 2(2), pages 1-46, October.
    9. Saras D. Sarasvathy & Sankaran Venkataraman, 2011. "Entrepreneurship as Method: Open Questions for an Entrepreneurial Future," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 35(1), pages 113-135, January.
    10. John Frow, 2008. "Review Essay," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(3), pages 355-359, November.
    11. Peter Knight, 2013. "Introduction," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 2-12, February.
    12. Alexandru Preda, 2012. "The Social Closure of the Stock Exchange," Chapters, in: Geoffrey Poitras (ed.), Handbook of Research on Stock Market Globalization, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Madarász, Aladár, 2011. "Buborékok és legendák. Válságok és válságmagyarázatok - II/1. rész. A Déltengeri Társaság [Bubbles and myths, crises and explanations II/1: the South Sea bubble]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 909-948.
    14. Tim Newton, 2008. "Review Essay," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(3), pages 349-354, November.
    15. Peter Knight, 2013. "Reading The Ticker Tape In The Late Nineteenth-Century American Market," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 45-62, February.
    16. Mark Blaug, 2001. "No History of Ideas, Please, We're Economists," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 145-164, Winter.
    17. Ann E. Davis, 2013. "Panglossian Paradox: How Paradigmatic Purity Compromises Policy Effectiveness," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(4), pages 346-358, November.
    18. Mary Poovey, 2008. "Beneath The Horizon Of Cultural Visibility," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(3), pages 337-347, November.
    19. Ann Davis, 2012. "Panglossian Economics," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(6), pages 67-87.
    20. Demid Golikov, 2005. "Financial Intermediary In Monetary Economics: An Excerpt," Macroeconomics 0510018, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General
    • B11 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Preclassical (Ancient, Medieval, Mercantilist, Physiocratic)
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:25:y:2011:i:3:p:217-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.