Modern Economic Problems Part 5

-- 1. #Commodity and fiduciary defined#. The actual moneys in circulation in every modern country consist of a wide variety of pieces, differing in denomination, physical size, shape and materials, mode of issue, source or authority of issue, and legal character.

Among these kinds, one is the standard and is a commodity-money.[1] In such cases the coinage is free and nearly gratuitous, and the value of the money is kept close to parity with its value as bullion by changing bullion into coin, or coin back into bullion, whenever there is an appreciable difference between the values in the two uses. This adjustment is brought about by the free action of the people. The government, having declared what is the standard money unit, and having provided a mint to make coins, leaves it to citizens, acting from the ordinary compet.i.tive motives, to decide when they will reduce or increase the number of coins in circulation.

The other kinds of money are not commodity-money and the materials of which they are made, whatever they be, are not worth as much in any other uses as they are in their present monetary form. Their value is always referred to, and adjusted to, that of the commodity-money, so long as any of it is in circulation. In contrast with commodity-money, these other kinds may be called fiduciary money. By fiduciary money we mean money that has not a commodity value equal to its money value, but which is generally accepted because each receiver has faith that others in turn will take it in the same way.[2]

-- 2. #Present monetary system of the United States.# Here is given a summary of the main features marking the present monetary system of the United States (in 1915).

Not all this variety is essential to an efficient monetary system and several of the kinds survive as the result of historical accidents (political and legislative). But all are now kept in accord with the value of the gold coin which, it will be observed, is the only kind the amount of which is not artificially limited. Silver dollars are no longer coined, subsidiary silver and minor coins are issued only in exchange for other money, as are gold and silver certificates in exchange for gold or for silver, which they merely represent while in circulation.

-- 3. #Saturation point of fractional money.# Fiduciary money is that on which regularly the issuer makes a seigniorage charge.[3] Let us consider now the effect of seigniorage on the value of money.

Fractional coins are those of smaller denominations than the standard unit of money, as shillings and pence in England, and half dollars, quarter dollars, dimes, nickels, and cents in America. Money to serve well a variety of uses must be of different denominations, and "small change" is necessary to make small purchases and for exact settlement in larger payments that are not multiples of the standard unit. The amount required (or most convenient to use) in each denomination of fractional coins is thus a more or less certain portion of each person's monetary demand, shaped by experience and fixed by habit. For example, within certain elastic limits of convenience quarters may be used for halves, and dimes for nickels (and _vice versa_); but each person has a point of preference. The total demand for each kind of change is the sum of the individual demands. This point where the amount of coins of any denomination (in relation to the whole monetary system) is most convenient may be called the saturation point of that kind of small change, up to which point the people prefer a share of their money in that form, and beyond which they will, if free to choose, exchange that kind for other denominations (smaller or larger). Each kind of money, as the cent, nickel, dime, has its own peculiar demand and its saturation point.

MONETARY SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES, 1915

Metals | Weight, grains | Fineness |Ratio to gold 1. Gold coins | 25.8 | .90 | 100 2. Silver dollar | 412.5 | .90 | 15.988 to 1 3. Silver, subsidiary | 385.8 | .90 | 14.953 to 1 4. Nickel (5 cents) | 77.0 | .25 | ...........

5. Copper (1 cent) | 48.0 | .95 | ...........

---------------------------------------------------------------- Metal |Limit of issue | Legal tender for|Receivable for | | private debts |public dues 1. Gold coins | Unlimited. | Unlimited. |For all 2. Silver dollar |Ceased in 1905 | Unlimited. |For all 3. Silver, | Needs of the | $10 |$10 subsidiary | people | | 4. Nickel (5 cts.) | Do. | 25 cts. |25 cts.

5. Copper (1 ct.) | Do. | 25 cts. |25 cts.

| | _Paper_ | | | 6. Gold certificates|Unlimited in ex-| No |For all |change for gold | | 7. Silver |In exchange for | No |For all certificates | silver $ | | 8. US notes | No new issues. |Unlimited. |Except customs 9. Treasury notes | No new issues. |Unlimited |For all of 1890 | | | 10. National bank |Capital of banks|No |Except customs notes. | | | 11. Federal reserve |Per cent. of |At banks of |For all notes. | gold reserves |reserve system | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Metal |Exchangeable at |Redeemable at |In circulation |treasury for | treasury in |Oct 1, 1915 1. Gold coins |Gold certificates| |616,000,000 |U.S., Treas., or | | |Fed, res. notes | | 2. Silver dollar |Silver | |65,000,000 |certificates | | 3. Silver, |Minor coins |Lawful money[a]| subsidiary | |in sums or mul-|162,000,000 | |tiples of $20 | 4. Nickel | | Do. > 62,000,000[d]

5. Copper | | Do. /

Paper | | | 6. Gold certificates| Subsidiary and |Gold coin |1,172,000,000 | minor coins | |[e]

7. Silver | Silver and |Silver dollars | 482,000,000[f]

certificates | minor coins | | 8. US notes | Subsidiary and |Gold | 337,000,000 | minor coins | | 9. Treasury notes of| Silver and |Gold | 2,200,000 1890 | minor coins | | 10. National bank |Subsidiary silver|Lawful money[b]|761,000,000 notes |and minor coins | | 11. Federal reserve | Gold[c] |Gold[c] |133,000,000 notes | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------- Total[g]...........................................3,792,200,000

[Footnote a: "Lawful money" includes gold coin, silver dollars, U.S.

notes, and Treasury notes.]

[Footnote b: Redeemable also in lawful money at bank of issue.]

[Footnote c: Redeemable also at Federal reserve banks in gold.]

[Footnote d: Not usually included in the estimates of total money in circulation.]

[Footnote e: Represented dollar for dollar by gold kept in the U.S.

treasury.]

[Footnote f: Represented dollar for dollar by silver kept in the U.S.

treasury.]

[Footnote g: Besides, there were about $312,000,000 in the U.S.

Treasury not offset by outstanding paper. The total money stock (in circulation and in the Treasury, eliminating certificates representing gold and silver), was about $4,233,000,000, of which 70 per cent was metal (largely represented in circulation by paper certificates) and 30 per cent was paper. Of the 70 per cent 50 was gold, 18 was silver, and 2 was copper and nickel.]

-- 4. #Light-weight fractional coins.# The standard metal is usually too valuable to be suitable for coins of the smaller denominations.

Therefore, when gold is the standard, copper, nickel, and silver remain in restricted use. But when coins of these metals are issued at weights corresponding with their bullion value, difficulties arise.

Not only are they too heavy for convenience, but with every slight rise in their bullion value as compared with that of the standard metal, they become worth more as bullion than as coin and begin to disappear from circulation. This happened often throughout the Middle Ages and until the nineteenth century. The attempt was generally made to coin gold and silver at a ratio of weight corresponding exactly to their market values at a given moment and, every time the market conditions varied, the best full-weight coins of one of the two metals were taken out of circulation. [4]The country thus suffered for lack either of the larger gold coins or of fractional coins. At length, to remedy this difficulty, fractional silver coins, often called "token coins," were issued, in limited numbers, of less than full proportionate weight and bullion value.

This plan, having been partially tried, was generally adopted by the United States in 1853 at a time when the silver dollar of 371.25 fine grains was legally rated at the same value as the gold dollars of 23.22 grains, and was freely coined. The fractional coins were made a little over 6 per cent lighter per dollar than the dollar coin; two half-dollars or four quarters or ten dimes contained 93.52 cents worth of silver. Since then silver bullion has become worth much less in terms of gold, and for years past the bullion value of the silver in a dollar of silver small change has been between 40 and 60 cents. Why then has the fractional coinage a monetary value equal to the standard money, dollar for dollar?

The answer is, because it is artificially limited in quant.i.ty, so that it does not pa.s.s the point of saturation in the field of its use. Its value rests on its monetary use; it is fiduciary money, not commodity money. It is limited simply by letting "the needs of the people"

determine its amount. This is done by issuing it only in exchange for other money of the larger denominations, and by redeeming it in other money on demand. Fractional coins are issued on the request of banks in exchange for standard money. One needing "change" gets it at the bank; when the bank finds its supply falling short it gets more from the government mints. As business increased in 1898, the demand for nickels, dimes, and quarters became unprecedented, and the mints worked night and day to supply them. If these coins were made in great quant.i.ties and forced into circulation by the government through paying them out to creditors and officials, their quant.i.ty would become excessive and they would fall in value (be at a discount) compared with standard money. But as this is not done, and as, moreover, they are redeemed on demand at the treasury (and practically at every bank and post office) in other money, any slight tendency to depreciation in any locality is at once corrected. As it is, the government makes a seigniorage profit on the fiduciary coinage, as shown in the following table. [5] The fractional coinage is maintained at a parity with the standard money in accordance with the monopoly principle, expressed in the limitation of the amount.

_Receipts:_

Earnings (charges for refining, a.s.saying, manufacture for other countries, etc.)......................... $392,000 Bullion recovered, by-products, old materials, etc... 143,000 Profits on seigniorage, subsidiary silver............ 3,013,000 Profits on seigniorage minor coinage and recoinage... 2,387,000 ---------- Total receipts.......................................$5,935,000

_Expenditures_: All kinds............................................$1,138,000 ---------- Net revenues from mint service.....................$4,797,000

-- 5. #Worn coins and Gresham's law.# Coins may be light-weight as the result of another cause--namely, the abrasion (wearing off) of the coins in circulation. Nearly always when this has occurred the worn coins have still been accepted as money,[6] and ordinarily without any depreciation. That is to say, they have a value as money greater than the value of the bullion that is in them. Everybody takes them without hesitation as readily as if they were full weight. If, however, at this point, new full-weight coins are put into circulation, these at once disappear while the old ones remain in circulation--a fact that has always been somewhat mystifying.

In explanation of the phenomenon was formulated "Gresham's law" of the circulation side by side of coins of different bullion value: bad money drives out good money. Sir Thomas Gresham (whose name has but recently been given to this so-called law), explained the principle to Queen Elizabeth when counseling her regarding the recoinage of the debased money of the realm as was done in 1560. He showed that when old, worn coins were in circulation and the mint began putting out full-weight coins, the old lighter ones remained as money, while the new ones, being heavier, were picked out by jewelers and by those needing to send money abroad.

Gresham's law has a paradoxical wording and is frequently misunderstood. "Bad" money means not counterfeit money, but merely money that has not as great a bullion value compared with its money value as some other kind of money then in circulation. But not every piece of such money will drive out every piece of good money. The law applies only under certain conditions, and within certain limitations.

The "good" will be driven out only if the total amount of money in circulation is in excess of what would be needed if all were of full weight and of best quality. Paradoxically speaking, if there is not too much of the bad money, it is just as good as the good money. But even if good money is driven out, it may not leave the country. It may be h.o.a.rded, or be picked out by banks and savings-inst.i.tutions to retain as their reserves, or be melted for use in the arts. Gresham's "law" becomes thus a practical precept. As applied to the plan of recoinage it is: Withdraw the worn coins as rapidly (in equal numbers) as you put new coins into circulation.

The continued circulation of "bad" money along side of "good" money (light-weight along side of full-weight coins), so long as the total number of coins is not in excess of the money demand for full-weight coins, is explained thus on just the same principle as is the circulation at parity of a light-weight fractional coinage, in the preceding section.

-- 6. #A general seigniorage charge on standard money.# The fiduciary coinage problem presents itself under a some-what different guise in case a seigniorage charge is made on all coinage, even of that metal used as the standard unit. In this case coinage is free but not gratuitous. In this case no bullion is brought to the mint unless the coined pieces the owners receive have a value equal to the bullion value plus the seigniorage charge. The power to impose a seigniorage charge is a monopoly power. Artificial limitation is present.

Evidently, the number of coins that can be issued without depreciation is limited to that number which would circulate if they were made full weight without a seigniorage charge.[7] This number of pieces of full-weight metal is the saturation point of the money demand of the country. If more than that could in any way be put into circulation it would become worth less as money than as bullion, and would be melted or exported.

a.s.sume that this full supply of money at a given moment is 100,000 pieces or dollars; then consider the effect of imposing a seigniorage charge of ten per cent on further coinage. The government alone having the right of coinage, the need of money would give the circulating medium a monopoly value. The value of the money would rise. When it had risen until the coin would buy any more than one-ninth more bullion than was in it, the citizens would begin to take metal to the mint. After the ten per cent charge was taken out they would receive a coin which, the containing one-tenth less bullion, would be worth very nearly the same as the metal taken to the mint. No considerable depreciation could take place unless the volume of business fell off so that less money was needed than before. In that case there would be no outlet for the excess of coins until they fell to their bullion value, i.e., till they lost the entire value of the seigniorage, the monopoly element in them. Melting or exporting them before that point was reached would cause to the owner the loss of whatever element of seigniorage value they contained. We thus have arrived at the general principle of seigniorage: when the number of coins issued is limited to the saturation point, a seigniorage charge does not reduce their money value; they are worth more as money than as bullion. And this holds good of a large seigniorage charge as well as of a small one, even up to the extreme limit of a charge of 100 per cent. In this last case the government would retain the whole of the bullion brought to it and would give in return a piece of money made of material (metal or paper) with a negligible value.

-- 7. #Coinage on governmental account.# The fiduciary coinage problem may be presented also when coinage is not free, and the times and amount of coinage are determined by law or by legally authorized officials. In this case the bullion must be obtained by purchase in the open market (and paid for by some form of legal money, or by bonds). Coinage is then said to be "on governmental account."

Now, a.s.suming that the normal money-demand (the volume of business, or sum of exchanges) remains unchanged, let us consider what will result if the government begins to issue money in this way, when, as in the preceding case, 100,000 units of full-weight money are in circulation.

This action might be taken most simply by recoining all the full-weight pieces that came into the treasury, making them contain 1/10 less precious metal, and paying out 1111 pieces for every 1000 received. Every time this was done there would be an excess of 111 pieces above the normal money-demand, and 111 full-weight pieces would be exported or melted (Gresham's law). The process (in strict theory) may be repeated 90 times, at which point 90,000 full-weight coins have been received, 100,000 light-weight coins have been issued to take their place and 10,000 full-weight coins have gone out of circulation.

The total seigniorage charge would be 1-10 of 90,000, or 9000 units.

No depreciation has taken place, and the pieces, by reason of their limitation, bear a money value in excess of the bullion that is in them.

Now the government, with the next 1000 pieces collected by taxation, could buy enough bullion (in the open market) to make another 1111.

The excess of 111 pieces could not now be promptly removed by the melting down or exporting of 111 coins, for all those remaining in circulation have a bullion value 1/10 below their money value. As this process is repeated the excess must continue to grow from 100,000 to 111,111, and the value of the money piece in terms of bullion continue to fall from 10 to 9. At this point the 111,111 pieces would contain just the same amount of bullion and have just the same value as the 100,000 pieces did before. Thereafter no further profit would accrue to the government from issuing coins of that weight. To make a further profit it must again reduce the amount of pure metal in the coin.

This process was often repeated in the Middle Ages. A ruler, either by making a higher seigniorage charge or by coining on his own account, debased the quality or reduced the weight of the money of his realm.

For a time the new coins, having the same monetary use, circulated at par with the old coins. The ruler, pleased with this almost magical power of getting a revenue with little trouble, continued to issue coins until suddenly the heavier coins began to be exported or melted, and the value of the other money fell, to the mystification alike of the prince and of his people. The reason is now perfectly plain: the number of coins was not kept within the proper limits and they went down to their bullion value. The only way a further profit could be made in this way was to debase the coin again. By successive steps the coinage came to consist almost entirely of cheaper alloy.

-- 8. #The gold-exchange standard.# In a number of silver-using countries and colonial dependencies near the end of the nineteenth century, the fluctuations of the value of silver in terms of gold was a constant source of difficulty in the payment of foreign obligations to gold standard countries. Yet there were strong reasons in the habits of the people and in the industrial conditions of the country to forbid the adoption of gold and the disuse of silver as the actual money in circulation. The method adopted, that of the gold-exchange standard, involved these features.

(1) Closing the mints of the country to the free coinage of silver, as was done most notably in India in 1893 and in Mexico in 1904.

(2) Adoption of a fixed ratio of exchange between the silver coins in circulation and some gold coin which is made the standard of value in all transactions (as the dollar or the pound sterling), the money in circulation thus being all or nearly all of a fiduciary nature.

(3) Regulation and limitation of the amount of money in circulation so that a fixed parity between it and gold may be maintained (a) by the limited issue of coins only on governmental account, (b) by the sale, at a fixed rate, of foreign exchange bills payable abroad in the standard unit, the money paid for the bills being withheld from circulation in a special reserve, (c) by the purchase of foreign bills of exchange at a fixed rate, thus paying out and putting again into circulation some of the fiduciary money in the special reserve.

These monetary changes furnish numerous ill.u.s.trations and demonstrations of the quant.i.ty theory of money as applied to the entire circulating medium of a country.[8]

--9. #Nature of governmental paper money.# The problem of seigniorage presents itself in its most extreme form when money is made of paper.

Paper money is issued either by a government or by a bank. We will consider governmental notes here, reserving until Chapter 7 the case of bank notes.