This chapter explores the different explanations of Ricardo and Thornton for the depreciation of sterling after convertibility of sterling into gold was suspended during the Napoleonic Wars. Ricardo held that only overissue by the Bank of England could have caused depreciation of sterling while...

Monetary-policy rules arise when the value of a medium of exchange exceeds its cost of production. Two classes of monetary rules can be identified: (1) price rules that target the value of money in terms of a real commodity, e.g., gold, or in terms of an index of prices, and (2) quantity rules...

Evidence from low-frequency regressions for 27 countries since the XVIII century suggests that the relationship between broad money growth and inflation has been mostly one-for-one, and largely invariant to changes in the monetary regime. There is little evidence that the relationship had been...