Cambridge Economic Handbooks
2 total works
This 1983 book is a wide-ranging study of the macroeconomic side of monetary theory. Traditional macroeconomics uses simple, aggregative models to analyse monetary and fiscal policy. Gale argues that we cannot do without it but also that it rarely attains the standards of rigour required of modern theory. This book can be seen as an attempt to do it properly. The early chapters are critical and reconstructive. They take a fresh look at standard topics such as wealth effects, money and growth and the long-run effects of monetary and fiscal policy. Later chapters develop different themes. The questions raised are drawn from traditional macroeconomics but there are plenty of surprises. The conventional view is frequently turned on its head or shown to be unsatisfactory or not robust. This and other exciting ideas enliven a book which will continue to be of interest to students and theorists alike.
This book deals mainly with what can be described as the general-equilibrium approach to monetary theory. The author does not attempt an encyclopaedic treatment, rather Gale investigates the central problems and ideas in the development of topical monetary theory. The first part of the book - technically the easier - deals with questions which will be recognized as falling within the traditional field of (macroeconomic) monetary theory, although the treatment is unflaggingly microeconomic. The second part is less conventional, dealing with the general equilibrium theory of money in a fundamental way.