RICARDO THEORY OF MONEY MATTERS

In this paper three common charges against Ricardo's monetary theory are evaluated: the commodity-money fallacy, the neutrality of money and the long-period view. According to the first, Ricardo's identification of money with gold prevented him from coming to grasp with paper-money and therefore fully understanding the properties of money. According to the second, Ricardo is the champion of the quantity theory of money and failed to see the real effects of variations in nominal variables. According to the third, Ricardo gave exclusive attention to permanent phenomena to the detriment of analysis of short-period disturbances. The paper challenges these views and provides an alternative interpretation of Ricardo's monetary theory.