Money's unique and essential role in a free market and monetary disequilibrium as the root cause of the business cycle are principles central to the work of economist Leland Yeager. For three decades he has extolled the preeminent importance of money as a source of economic fluctuations whose influence goes well beyond mere changes in interest rates or the price level. Yeager's work discloses the disruptive consequences of "monetary disequilibrium," or an imbalance of money supply and money demand. Consequently, he argues that well-designed monetary arrangements and policies are important to the success of any free-market economic system. Similarly, he insists that defects in the existing monetary arrangements in "capitalist" countries are manifestly not inherent in capitalism but are "alterable consequences" of the misguided or even mischievous interventions of government. The eighteen essays address four general topics: "Monetary Disequilibrium and Its Consequences"; "Monetary Misconceptions"; "Keynesianism and Other Diversions"; and "Avoiding Monetary Disequilibrium." In his introduction, Professor George Selgin explains why "our understanding of the monetary foundations of a free society owes a great deal to the writings of Leland Yeager."
“A monetarist is an economist convinced by the evidence that the quantity of money and changes in it dominate the total flow of spending in an economy. The government budget and so-called real factor in the economy, including investment incentives, are distinctly subordinate influences when not paralleled by behavior of the money supply. The budget and the real factors are very important , to be sure, in affecting how resources are allocated to the production of various kinds of public and private goods and services; but they are unimportant , in comparison with money, in determining total spending.”
Leland B. Yeager
Leland B. Yeager (1924) is the Ludwig von Mises Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at Auburn University and Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia.
Professor Yeager has been Vice President of the Interlingua Institute, and his books include Foreign Trade and U.S. Policy: The Case for Free International Trade; International Monetary Relations: Theory, History and Policy; The International Monetary Mechanism; Proposals for Government Credit Allocation: Evaluative studies in economic policy; Experiences With Stopping Inflation; The Fluttering Veil: Essays on Monetary Disequilibrium; and Ethics as Social Science: The Moral Philosophy of Social Cooperation.