What is bank’s liquidity risk? Do banks have to 
take such a risk? Do banks which take this risk 
diminish or increase the « security of publick 
»(Smith, WN, Liberty Classics, p. 329)? The 
answer to these questions divided the classical 
and neo-classical economists. Cantillon, Hume, 
Steuart, Smith , Thornton, Ricardo, Torrens, 
Tooke, Bagehot, Kemmerer, Fisher, Hawtrey, Mints, 
etc… did not have the same analysis. In my 
opinion, it is useful that historians of economic 
thought try to give some light on these controversies.

Jérôme de Boyer des Roches