A Gold Classics Library Selection
Uses and Abuses of Gresham’s Law in the History of Money
by Robert Mundell, Nobel Prize for Economics, 1999
Now deceased, Dr. Robert Mundell, the highly influential Columbia University economist, was well-known for his advocacy of a gold component in monetary systems, including circulating gold coinage. But he also has written voluminously on a wide range of other topics. As early as 1961, Mundell proposed reducing tax rates and improving monetary discipline as the best means to achieve greater and more stable economic growth. His theories on this subject led to the Kennedy tax cuts, which propelled the U.S. economy of the 1960s and later became the supply-side basis for much of Reaganomics. Mundell also wrote early on of the constant realignment problems which would attend a world monetary system of free-floating currencies. His prescient work on the desirability of regional currencies was, in fact, fundamental to the creation of the euro. When Mundell was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize for economics, Princeton University economist Peter Kenen said, “Bob was modeling the world of the 1990s through the work he did in the 1960s.” Our thanks go to Dr. Mundell for his kind permission to reprint Uses and Abuses of Gresham’s Law in the History of Money in its entirety.
Dr. Robert Mundell (1932-2021)
