Contenu du sommaire : Monnaie et étalon chez David Ricardo

The paper addresses the question whether any commodity could be arbitrarily chosen as standard of money. The function of the standard of money is therefore analysed and distinguished from that of a numeraire. The question whether the commodity chosen as the standard of money should have particular properties was answered by Ricardo by identifying the main requirement for a good standard of money with the "invariability" of value. Given the well-known failure of Ricardo' s search for an "invariable measure of value", Sraffa' s Standard Commodity is then considered as a possible candidate for the standard of money and it is explained why this possibility should be rejected. Thus, in the absence of a theory to direct the choice of the standard of money, a commodity standard regime is either useless or harmful.

Value theory does not offer an appropriate framework for a study of the relations between measure of value and monetary standard. Money is not yet at home neither in general equilibrium theory nor in Neo-Ricardian approach. This paper suggests that investigating conditions of monetary coordination between economic agents allows one to deal with the question of the standard. The notion of Payment system appears to be a promising tool in this field.

The analysis of Ricardo's first monetary writings, during the bullion controversy, leads to some conceptual critiques about the money of account. Analytically, between the notes (means of payment) and the standard metal, there is no space in these papers for the unit of account. Merged both with means of payment (coins and notes) carrying it and with the (gold) standard supposed to define it, it disappears from the conceptual field. This paper tries to find the unit of account in analysing writings that would forget its scientific interest. It shows that the ricardian approach comes up against the problem of the monetary reality of a society where we count, we express prices and contracts in a name (the pound) that transcends payment forms and is different from the standard till going without it. A normative approach of the money of account as a simple name of the metallic standard is replaced by a more positive approach of the money of account that is itself the standard of deffered payments, embodied in debts built on a trust making social consensus.

In this paper, we want to clarify one of the reasons of Ricardo' s position about money. The study of The high price of bullion, a proof of the depreciation of bank notes (1810) reveals two different significations of "the standard measure of value". They show how it is important for Ricardo to protect the interests of "moneyed people", that is the class of men who finance accumulation.

D. Ricardo has been, from his early writings to the last ones, in favor of a central bank which is a state monopoly, and never supported a free banking system. This regime of issuing is consistent with his views on the regulation of paper money. The latter is issued by the central bank acting not as a lender but as an organizer of the gold market where it actively intervenes to keep the price of gold fixed. Markets are viewed not only as the result of microeconomic behaviour, but as requiring an institutional setting to perform their functions in an efficient way. This activist policy is working within a carefully specified institutional framework and the central bank cannot pursue a discretionary policy.

The purpose of the paper is to clarify in which sense the specificity of the concept of a monetary standard may be derived from its treatment by Ricardo. It shows that, even in a metallic regime, any link between the standard of the value of money and the standard of the real value of commodities must be broken ; this does not prevent the monetary standard from stabilizing the general price level. Its main use in any monetary regime is however to facilitate the adoption of the legal unit of account by economic agents ; in contrast with the modern "Free Banking" approach, the existence of a central money is the condition of that outcome.