The following seminar will take place next week, We continue with HYBRID format. As usual, the seminar will be streamed through Google Meets.

Department of Economic Analysis & ICAE Research Seminars:

WEDNESDAY, April 27th, 2022, 13:00 h. @ ICAE’s Blanco Losada Library (N101 Prefabricado)

Dennis O Flynn (Pacific World History Institute)

Title:

Physical Economics, Monies, and the Laws of Supplies and Demands

Abstract

Discuss how to describe accumulations (stocks) of ordinary non-monetary goods. The second half of the book will argue that tangible monies (plural) – not “money” (singular) in the macroeconomic sense – can be examined in the same manner as non-monetary goods. Hence, I am proposing a Price Theory of Monies (and Unified Theory of Prices). Doing so eliminates the need for the normal microeconomics-macroeconomics dichotomy of modern economics for the past century-plus.

The key to viewing individual tangible monies in the same manner as non-monetary goods rests upon identification of six monetary functions that date back to at least 3000 BCE. The six monetary functions are:

1. Unit of Accounting (via practical bookkeepers): e.g., the shekel a unit of accounting used widely in 3000 BCE, 2300+ years before arrival of the so-called “first coins” during the 7th century BCE. Unit-of-Accounting monies are intangible.

2. Similar to Unit-of-Accounting monies, the “Link Money” function evolved after coins had come into common usage. Link-Monies are also intangible.

3. The medium-of-exchange function is the same as in common textbooks. Medium-of-exchange monies are tangible.

4. Store-of-value monies are also tangible.

5. Monetary-standard monies, such “the gold standard” or the “dollar standard,” require tangible monies.

6. Finally, “Measure-of-Relative-Values” monies, e.g., the microeconomic “dollar” refer to relative prices and are necessarily intangible. (This MRV function both (a) contradicts macroeconomic requirements to qualify as “money,” and (b) are crucial for integration of tangible monies into my Laws of Supplies and Demands model).

Since it is impossible for anything to be both tangible and intangible simultaneously, “money” (as defined traditionally) cannot exist in principle. Tangible commodity monies prevailed throughout most of human history; they were produced for profit worldwide and therefore deserve the same analytical approach as non-monetary goods – disaggregation! All goods, including all tangible monies, are “wealth components

You can also join the  seminar through Google Hangout Meets at the following link:

https://meet.google.com/gnb-myzc-zve?pli=1

@ucm accounts are granted immediate access to the webinar. External accounts require explicit approval by the moderators.You can find the recording of the talk  as well as previous sessions, papers, and the schedule of upcoming seminars at the seminar’s webpage。