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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 12.: ricardo to [malthus][Fragment] - The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 6 Letters 1810-1815

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12.: ricardo to [malthus][Fragment] - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 6 Letters 1810-1815 [1810]

Edition used:

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 6 Letters 1810-1815.

Part of: The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, 11 vols (Sraffa ed.)

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


12.

ricardo to [malthus]3
[Fragment]

Dear Sir

After giving the subject which you yesterday mentioned due consideration, I cannot agree with you in opinion that the exchange will not accurately express the degree of depreciation which the currency may have experienced.

I think your statement was this, The currency has been depreciated 2 pct. or in other words goods have experienced a rise of 2 pct., but it will not necessarily follow that the exchange shall be depressed 2 pct. only, because as this rise of goods will be common to home goods as well as to foreign goods the exchange will probably be affected as much as 4 pct.. To me however it appears that no rise in the price of goods arising from a depreciation in the currency would occasion any alteration either in the amount of commodities or the real prices, at which they would be imported or exported, until the exchange reached that limit at which it would pay the expences attending the exportation

[The bottom of the sheet is cut off; what follows is written on the reverse side.]

The currency has been augmented 2 pct. consequently the prices of all commodities, more or less, both inland and foreign would rise 2 pct.. The encouragement to the importation of goods, and the discouragement to exportation would be speedily counteracted by the demand for bills which would raise the price of them, or in other words lower the foreign exchange, 2 pct.. The trade would then go on as before but would be estimated in a medium depreciated 2 pct.. The real prices of commodities would be, to foreigners, unaltered. If the exchange fell 5 or 7 pct. in consequence of further depreciation metallic money would go as long as we had any to send, after which the trade would be restored to its accustomed level, and exports would precisely balance

[The remainder is wanting.]

[3 ]MS (in Ricardo’s handwriting) in R.P. This is an incomplete draft of a letter which may not have been sent: only the contents suggest that it was intended for Malthus.