Money: Its Origins, Development, Debasement, and Prospects

In, Money: Its Origins, Development, Debasement, and Prospects, John H. Wood traces the history of money and shows how its production and value may be governed by the forces that regulate other goods—principal among them the pursuit of profit.

Producers, consumers, savers, and investors all have vital interests in the preservation of the purchasing power of money. But the great inflation of the last two-thirds of the twentieth century that has eroded nine-tenths of the purchasing power of the dollar demonstrates forcefully that those interests are not being cared for.

The government agencies that have been given the responsibility for the creation of money and the protection of its value have failed in their duties and abused their powers. There is no good reason why the means of payment cannot be held to the same standards of reliability and efficiency as other products in a competitive economy.

John H. Wood was an economist for the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, Philadelphia, and Dallas. He taught economics at the University of Birmingham in England, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and most recently retired from Wake Forest University as a Reynolds Professor of Economics. He earned his B.S. in commerce from Ohio University in 1955, his M.A. in economics from Michigan State University in 1959, and his Ph.D. in economics from Purdue University in 1964. He was a visiting scholar and faculty associate at the American Institute for Economic Research from 1998-2010.