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Subject:
From:
Daniele Besomi <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:41:03 -0500
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As to Hayek's paper on "restoring the price level". I don't think 
there was any need to commission an article on that topic, as it was 
a matter of general debate at the time. For instance, the subtitle of 
Keynes's The Means To Prosperity (March 1933, in The times) was 
"Raising The Price Level, The Ottawa Decision". Harrod was also 
engaged in that discussion (see 
http://economia.unipv.it/harrod/edition, both in the correspondence 
and in the 'press item' sections). The point was that in order to 
stimulate recovery it was essential to bring the price level back to 
the 1929 level (the term 'reflation' was coined at about that time). 
It was also a topic discussed at the World economic conference in July 1933.

Without knowing the exact circumstances of the writing of Hayek's 
piece, it is not hard to imagine that he could have wanted to express 
disagreement on that view --although I'd more easily place Hayek's 
piece in the first half of 1933, or late 1932, when the debate was 
more lively, with economists subscribing collective letters on the 
topic (Are you sure that the pencilled note was contemporary with the 
paper? if the result of a posterior dating attempt, it could be wrong).

Daniele Besomi

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