At the HES meeting held at Grinnell, Iowa, June 2006, the following citation was read:  
  
  
The 2005 Best Article committee comprised Vincent Barnett, Alain Marciano, Leon Montes,
Michael White, and myself.  The Committee had to choose from a set of nine outstanding
articles that were a pleasure to read.
  
I am very pleased to announce that this year's winner of the History of Economics Society
best Article Award is Carl Wennerlind of Barnard College, for his article "David Hume's
Monetary Theory Revisited: Was He Really a Quantity Theorist and an Inflationist?," The
Journal of Political Economy vol. 113, 2005.
  
Traditionally, economists have interpreted Hume as describing the economy in terms
consistent with a quantity theory in which money is neutral, but yet inconsistently
prescribing an inflationary policy.  This interpretation has been incorporated into the
stories economists have told about their own work, from Keynes to Friedman to Lucas.  In
his fascinating and important article, Wennerlind shows that Hume made a distinction
between "endogenous" and "exogenous" increases in the stock of money.  The state cannot
manufacture wealth by increasing the money supply, but when the quantity of money in
circulation grows naturally following a real increase in industry, that growth both
signals and enhances the prosperity.
  
We highly recommend this excellent article to everybody.  Carl, congratulations.  
  
  
Spencer Banzhaf