The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays (LvMI)

by Richard M. Ebeling

That the order in which a continued increase in the money stream raises the different prices is crucial for an understanding of the effects of inflation was clearly seen more than two hundred years ago by David Hume—and indeed before him by Richard Cantillon. It was in order deliberately to eliminate this effect that Hume assumed as a first approximation that one morning every citizen of a country woke up to find the stock of money in his possession miraculously doubled. Even this would not really lead to an immediate rise of all prices by the same percentage. But it is not what ever really happens. The influx of the additional money into the system always takes place at some particular point. There will always be some people who have more money to spend before the others. Who these people are will depend on the particular manner in which the increase in the money stream is being brought about. It may be spent in the first instance by government on public works or increased salaries, or it may be first spent by investors mobilizing cash balances or borrowing for the purpose; it may be spent in the first instance on securities, on investment goods, on wages or on consumer’s goods. It will then in turn be spent on something else by the first recipients of the additional expenditure, and so on. The process will take very different forms according to the initial source or sources of the additional money stream; and all its ramifications will soon be so complex that nobody can ...

inflation and increased prices of goods.