KREDIT und KAPITAL - Issue 1/1970


Contents


Articles

Brunner, Karl
Eine Neuformulierung der Quantitätstheorie des Geldes. Die Theorie der relativen Preise, des Geldes, des Outputs und der Beschäftigung

Kleinewefers, Henner
Die Politik der Deutschen Bundesbank in dem Konjunkturzyklus 1964 bis 1968

Linhardt, Hanns
Die Entstehung der europäischen Geldmärkte auf Grund der jüngsten Fugger-Forschungen von Götz von Pölnitz


Book Reviews


Geldtheorie und Geldpolitik. Günter Schmölders zum 65. Geburtstag
(Ulrich Schirmer)

Uhlenbruck, Dirk
Die verfassungsmäßige Unabhängigkeit der Deutschen Bundesbank und ihre Grenzen
(Gerhard Herbst)


Summaries

Brunner, Karl
“A Reformulation of the Quantity Theory of Money”

The point of departure is the incapacity of traditional price theory to explain the widespread non utilization of agents of production as encountered in the mass unemployment of the thirties. Keynes attempted to overcome this difficulty with a theory of interest in which the movements of interest rates appeared as the mirror image of a mechanism of relative prices. Then, in the Keynesian theory of the forties, this price theory approach was dropped and a so-called transfer mechanism was interpreted with the help of credit costs and entrepreneurial reaction to changes in them. The ensuing econometric investigations, however, brought an abundance of contradictory results on the significance of the interest mechanism. Hence the question can now be raised of whether the prevailing theoretical model should not be given up altogether, and an attempt made to reformulate price theory in a form which gives renewed validity -both to the original programme of Keynes and that of Irving Fisher. Essentially this reformulation necessitates two extensions.- On the one hand, the reactions to market stimuli must be generalized so that capital assets and liabilities, and also their returns and costs can be included. On the other hand, neither information nor changes in the structure of resource utilization are produced without marginal costs (or average costs). The article ventilates these two lines of approach thoroughly and develops from them a comprehensive price theory which also includes monetary phenomena. The object is a reformulation of the Quantity Theory in which the mechanism of relative prices plays a central role for capital assets, liabilities and output.

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Kleinewefers, Henner
“The Policy of the German Bundesbank in the Trade Cycle from 1964 to 1968”

This article examines the monetary policy of the German Bundesbank in the period from 1964 to 1968. The first chapter deals with the trend of macro-economic magnitudes from 1964 to 1968. Special emphasis is placed on the exact fixing of trade cycle turning points, as this is of decisive importance for an assessment of monetary policy. In the second chapter, the individual measures taken by the Bundesbank are investigated. The customary consideration of minimum reserve policy and the granting of Bundesbank credit to the banks is summarized in a particularly significant ventilation of the “net cash position" of the banks in relation to the Bundesbank. A further section of this chapter covers the influence exerted by the Bundesbank on the interest rates for short and long term capital. In this connection special emphasis is placed on the relationship between interest and liquidity policy. The third chapter contains a comparison between the influence of the Bundesbank on monetary and trade cycle developments and other circumstances which exert a simultaneous effect, but cannot be influenced by the Bundesbank. The following are the most important results of this analysis:
1. The restrictive monetary policy of the Bundesbank was very mild, both absolutely and in comparison with other money tightening factors. Therefore responsibility for the recession in late 1966 and the first six months of 1967 can-not be ascribed to the Bundesbank.
2. Since as early as midd-1966, the Bundesbank has permitted a marked improvement in the liquidity of the banking system by reversal of the balance of payments trend and from the beginning of 1967 it has energetically supported that improvement in liquidity. There is therefore no evidence that the Bundesbank delayed or hindered the new upswing of the trade cycle.
These results contradict many of the charges levelled against the policy of the Bundesbank in 1966 und 1967.

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Linhardt, Hanns
“The Genesis of the European Money Markets in the light of the Latest Research on the Fuggers by G. von Pölnitz”

The trading companies found in the upper German area since the 14thcentury were owned and managed by members of leading patrician families. The expansion of their international sphere of operations facilitated a shift from trade in commodities, with all its risks of procurement, sales, and warehousing and Transport, to financial business with its facilities for transferring assets by way of bills of exchange and the giro system. Leading merchants like the Fuggers in Augsburg, who accomplished such a transition, imposed on the owners and employees a strict regime of internal orderliness and operating principles in the head office and their often numerous branches. By means of written articles of association, working regulations and inheritance arrangements they attained that internal consolidation (essentially secured by bookkeeping, inventories and balance sheets) which outwardly laid the foundation for the trust of numerous depositors and big debtors. Among the trading centres with their foreign agents and connections, the outstanding ones were those distinguished by visits from merchants from distant cities, the constant presence of their agents and the contact among creditors, debtors and financial intermediaries. In addition to the great northern Italian centres, they included the cities of Augsburg, Nuremberg, Lyons, Geneva and Antwerp. From the early 15th century onwards, under the influence of Anton Fugger, Augsburg moved more and more into the foremost ranks of such financial centres. The Fugger city attained international rank and repute. The more personal ties (like those between Anton Fugger and Emperor Charles V) were carried over into institutions like the trading company on the one hand and the imperial administration with its counsellors and notaries on the Other, the more dependable was the progress made in the continuous process of objectivation of credit relationships, although that progress was not always undisturbed. The end of the process was marked by an institution which is indispensable for a modern commercial economy, the money and capital market. lf we know its functions, we should also comprehend its conformation, to which great personalities made decisive contributions.

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