Gresham’s Law states that bad money drives out good money. This can happen in both inflationary and deflationary monetary environments. Basically, it must means that people will spend their “bad” currency first to get the maximal value out of it, and save the “good” money for the future because it will not depreciate as fast. That’s why you see socialist government inveighing against “hoarders”, “wreckers”, and “speculators” — the good money is biding its time and flushing out the bad money first.
For example, consider the US fifty-dollar gold coin. These coins are collected for their numismatic value and not their currency value. In fact, these coins are useless as actual currency. Why? The value of the gold and silver in the coins far outstrips the face value of the coin. Gresham’s Law would drive the coins out of circulation — either they would be melted down for bullion, hoarded, or traded as barter (not currency!) for objects of similar value.
Monty, “Inflation, Deflation, and Monetary Policy”, Ace of Spades HQ, 2014-07-11.
June 12, 2015
QotD: Gresham’s Law
Comments Off on QotD: Gresham’s Law
No Comments
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
