THIRTY years have passed since anyone wrote a book exclusively—or even largely— devoted to an analysis of the supply of money. Phillip Cagan's Determinants and Effects of Changes in the Stock of Money, 1875-1960 (1965)1 would be welcome, therefore, if it did no more than intensify interest in a subject that lay dormant until recently. The book does much more, however. Cagan patiently examines the multitude of factors that influence the principal determinants of the money supply and hence the money supply itself. He then extracts from his data information about the perennial questions: Do changes in money cause the subsequent changes in output and prices? Or, is the stock of money pulled up and down by secular and cyclical changes in prices and output so that movements of money may be regarded as of little or no causal significance

MR. SYRING (1967) suggests that I relied on assertion rather than evidence or proof to support my statement that "little bias results from the exclusion of human wealth from the measure of wealth used to test the [demand-for-money] hypothesis" (Meltzer, 1963, p. 234). Further, he finds nothing in the empirical evidence to support my assumption that the ratio (d) of income from human wealth ( y h ) to the stock of human wealth ( w h ) is constant in the long run, although he recognizes that the assumption may be correct. In this note I will show that the estimated elasticities of real money balances with respect to real income and real non-human wealth are quite consistent with my assumption that d is constant in the long run. I will then discuss the more general problem that he raises, namely, whether it is possible to distinguish empirically between income and wealth as constraints on the demand for money.

In his brilliant and valuable book on The Economics of Overhead Costs,' Professor J. M. Clark gives an arithmetical example to illustrate the theory of distribution by marginal productivity which seems to the writer to involve a slip worth pointing out. By way of background a few observations are necessary. Discussion of that famous theory has strangely neglected the apparently fundamental question of whether distribution in accordance with its principles would actually result in an exhaustive division of the product of industry among the factors of production. That is, if each unit of each factor is paid what any one unit contributes to the total product, will there be enough product to go around, and no more? If this is not true, it is evident that the theory must be abandoned at once or fundamentally modified.

The Supreme Court of the United States for reasons good or bad has committed itself to the doctrine that an attempt on the part of a manufacturer to control the resale price of his product by contract is an offense punishable under the Sherman Antitrust Act; that such an attempt is unfair competition within the meaning of the Federal Trade Commission Act and can be prohibited by the Trade Commission; and that the contract itself is, of course, unenforcible and not entitled to the protection of the law. The theory of the Supreme Court underlying this conclusion seems to be that "where commodities have passed into the channels of trade and are owned by dealers," the dealers are privileged to sell them at their own prices; and that the factory having "sold its product at a price satisfactory to itself, the public is entitled to whatever advantage may be derived from competition in the subsequent traffic."'T It is not within the scope of this article to examine the fundamentals underlying the view of the Supreme Court in the Miles case, however unsound the decision may seem. But it should be noted in passing that Justice Holmes, that rare genius of the law, dissented from the conclusion of the court and recent cases indicate that he has not yet been converted to the view of the majority. Taking the conclusion of the Supreme Court in the Miles case as the starting-point and assuming the soundness of the decision, the purpose of this article is to trace the more recent development of the law in the federal courts with respect to price maintenance and particularly to note a curious tangle into which the Supreme Court has apparently wandered. When the Supreme Court outlawed price-maintenance contracts on the score that they suppress competition and are therefore contrary to sound public policy, it was perfectly natural that manufacturers should have immediately resorted to other

Prof essor Carver' is a welcome addition to the steadily increasing number of economic students who are dissatisfied with the neoclassical limitations that have been imposed upon economic theory. He has joined the "welfare crowd," his volume being dedicated " to all those who care to see their country grow great and strong. " Viewing with high scorn the common doctrine that the economist should concern himself only with the means of satisfying desires, without considering the possible detrimental effects to the race, he accordingly deplores the lack of attention that has been given to consumption by writers on political economy and remarks that "a few students are beginning to discover that consumption is more important than production, exchange and distribution-possibly more important than all three combined" (p. ii). "Consumption reacts powerfully upon all other departments, particularly upon distribution" (p. 455). This emphasis upon consumption and upon the concept of welfare meets with the reviewer's unqualified endorsement. I have always failed to understand why economists should lay such emphasis upon "long-run" considerations and then persist in counting all things as wealth so long as they momentarily satisfy individual cravings, regardless of their ultimate economic and social consequences. The narrow definition which makes whiskey wealth because it has utility has not tended to commend economic analysis to the favorable consideration of those whose interests lie in the field of public welfare. There could, of course, be little objection to the classical definition of wealth if the economist were satisfied to admit at the conclusion of his analysis that it had little bearing on problems of long-run economic development or on matters of practical statesmanship. But this he is seldom content to do. He fancies that, like Adam Smith, he is really concerned

The previous article' discussed the process by which the level of prices was raised and the quantity of circulating medium increased during the war. It is now our purpose to consider the possibilities of a fall in the general level of prices. In his recent analysis of post-war prices2 Professor Fisher observes that we have had a price revolution similar to that which followed the discovery of the New World and the appropriation of its great supplies of precious metals four hundred years ago. Professor Fisher bases his conclusion on the ground that there has been a permanent increase in the quantity of money multiplied by its velocity of circulation plus the quantity of credit currency multiplied by its velocity of circulation-in consequence of which the price quotient must remain permanently higher than it was before the war. With the general conclusion that we are not likely to witness any considerable fall in the general level of prices in the immediate future I find myself in substantial accord. Whether the price revolution will remain permanent, however, depends, I believe, upon factors that are not adequately treated by a mere statement of the equation of exchange of money and goods. An appreciation of the probable post-war trend of prices can best be gained by a consideration of the probable expenses of production of commodities. Let us consider first the relation between post-war prices and the volume of currency: It is generally assumed by quantity theorists that when bank currency has once been utilized it is practically certain to be used again-that when credit instruments have once entered the channels of circulation they remain there indefinitely as price-determining factors. This assumption, I

I had formerly some claim to be called an economist, having taken a Doctor's degree in that subject in x894. Having since that time devoted myself to sociology it is only recently that I have endeavored to recover my economic foothold by reading those current books that seem to have most acceptance. The following paper is in the way of general comment on this reading. The science and philosophy of the present day strives to see everything as part of a process, as growing out of the past under the operation of ascertainable laws, and giving rise, in a similar way, to the future. What should this mean as applied to economics ? What should we expect of a doctrine of economic process? Such a doctrine should, of course, embrace something corresponding to the theory of production, exchange, valuation, competition, and the like which we now study in the textbooks; but it should do much more than this: it should show these immediate processes as consistent and intelligible parts of economic process at large; it should enable us to understand their human significance and to act wisely with reference to them. Practical guidance is what we have a right to ask of every social science, and that we may have this, special phenomena must be seen in the light of their larger relations. An adequate doctrine must, then, take account in the largest possible way of the economic movement with a view to rational social action for economic welfare. Where economics falls short of this it fails of its essential function; and if it does fall short, if the function cannot be fulfilled immediately, it should not for a moment be abandoned as an idea; we should keep it in view and be content with no substitute.