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Thomas M. Humphrey

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Thomas M. Humphrey
Thomas M. Humphrey, economist
Born(1935-03-08)March 8, 1935
Louisville, Kentucky
DiedSeptember 16, 2023(2023-09-16) (aged 88)
NationalityAmerican
Other namesThomas MacGillivray Humphrey
EducationUniversity of Tennessee (B.S, M.S); Tulane University (Ph.D)
Occupation(s)Economist, author, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Years activeuntil 2005 (retired)
Known forHistory of monetary thought
SpouseMitzi Greene Humphrey (married June 1957)

Thomas MacGillivray Humphrey (March 8, 1935 - September 16, 2023)[1] was an American economist.[2] Until 2005 he was a research advisor and senior economist in the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and editor of the bank's flagship publication, the Economic Quarterly.[3] His publications cover macroeconomics, monetary economics, and the history of economic thought.[3][4] Mark Blaug called him the "undisputed master" of British classical monetary thought.[5]

Writing and research

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Humphrey has written books and journal articles on monetary policy history.[6][7] He is the author of articles published in journals such as the Cato Journal,[8][9] HOPE (History of Political Economy),[10] Southern Economics Journal,[11] and Econ Focus (formerly Region Focus).[12] He wrote over 70 articles published in the journals of the Richmond Federal Reserve.[13][14] Articles by Humphrey such as Rival Notions of Money [15] may be freely accessed and downloaded at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's website.

Humphrey was an editor of the Federal Reserve of Richmond Economic Quarterly, previously known as the Economic Review and before that as the Monthly Review.[16] In 1998 his annual report for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond was Mercantilists and Classicals: Insights from Doctrinal History.[17]

His first four books on the history of monetary thought were: The Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments, Exchange Rates, and World Inflation (co-author Robert Keleher); Money, Banking and Inflation: Essays in the History of Monetary Thought; Money, Exchange and Production: Further Essays in the History of Economic Thought; and Essays on Inflation.[18] Charles R. McCann Jr. stated, in reference to Humphrey's book Money, Banking and Inflation: Essays in the History of Monetary Thought that "monetary economists looking for an accessible introduction to their discipline's past will find few better starting points than this volume."[4](registration required)

In 2019 The Cato Institute published his fifth book, Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed: Sources of Monetary Disorder – 1922–1938, a collaboration between Humphrey and his co-author Richard H. Timberlake.

His writing on the history of economic thought was included in the first edition to the New Palgrave and in the later An Encyclopedia of Keynesian Economics[19] to which he contributed an article on the Chicago School of Economics, and also in festschriften, book reviews,[20] textbooks, annual reports, and anthologies.[21] For Famous Figures in Diagrams and Economics[22] by Mark Blaug and Peter Lloyd, Humphrey wrote the first chapter, Marshallian Cross Diagrams and Chapter 55, Intertemporal utility maximization – the Fisher diagram.[22] Humphrey's works on monetary theory are cited in David Laidler's book Fabricating the Keynesian Revolution: Studies of the Inter-War Literature on Money, the Cycle, and Unemployment.[23]

In 2006, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke at the Fourth ECB Central Banking Conference, Frankfurt, Germany, cited Humphrey's article on the real bills doctrine.[24][25] In 2008 Humphrey gave the Fourth Annual Ranlett Lecture in Economics at California State University, Sacramento, entitled Lender of Last Resort: The Concept in History. In 2009 Humphrey participated in the Adam Smith Program, Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, where he presented The Fed's Deviation from Classical Thornton-Bagehot Lender-of-Last-Resort Policy, a paper co-authored with Richard Timberlake.[26] At the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Economics Association (AEA) in Atlanta, Georgia, his subject was The Lender of Last Resort in the History of Economic Thought. In February 2013, he wrote Working Paper No. 751 Arresting Financial Crises: The Fed Versus the Classicals[27] for the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, an essay which was subsequently presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia of the American Economics Association. He wrote reviews of books by other writers on economic subjects, such as Sylvia Nasar, Arie Arnon,[28] and Robert W. Dimand's "Irving Fisher (Great Thinkers in Economics)".

Books

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  • The Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments, Exchange Rates, and World Inflation (co-author Robert Keleher). ISBN 9780030559563[29]
  • Money, Banking and Inflation: Essays in the History of Monetary Thought. ISBN 9781852789411
  • Money, Exchange, and Production: Further Essays in the History of Economic Thought. ISBN 1858986524[30][31]
  • Essays on Inflation. ISBN 0894990888[32]
  • Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed: Sources of Monetary Disorder 1922–1938. (co-author Richard H. Timberlake). ISBN 9781948647557[33][34]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Obituary information for Thomas MacGillivray Humphrey".
  2. ^ "Thomas Humphrey - Author | Richmond Fed".
  3. ^ a b "Al Broaddus & Tom Humphrey" (PDF). Region Focus (Fall 2004): 30–34. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  4. ^ a b McCann Jr., Charles R. (Winter 1996). "Economic Thought since Keynes: A History and Dictionary of Major Economists". History of Political Economy. 28 (4): 710–712. doi:10.1215/00182702-28-4-710.
  5. ^ Blaug, Mark (1995). The Quantity Theory of Money: From Locke to Keynes to Friedman. Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar. p. 45.
  6. ^ Federal Reserve, Richmond. "FRD Richmond". Federal Reserve of Richmond. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  7. ^ Humphrey, Thomas M. "Fed in Print". www.fedinprint.org. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
  8. ^ Humphrey, Thomas. "Lender of Last Resort" (PDF). Cato Journal. Cato Institute. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  9. ^ Timberlake, Richard H. Jr.; September 25, Thomas Humphrey This article appeared on Cato org on (25 September 2008). "A Stable Price Level Standard for Federal Reserve Monetary Policy". Cato Institute. Retrieved 5 June 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ "History of Political Economy". hope.dukejournals.org. Duke University Press. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  11. ^ Southern Economics Journal. 41 (July 1974), 58
  12. ^ Humphrey, Thomas M. "Book Review: 'The Real Adam Smith' by Gavin Kennedy". Region Focus (Summer 2006). Richmond, Virginia: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond: 49–51.
  13. ^ Humphrey, Thomas (Winter 1996). "The Early History of the Box Diagram". Economic Quarterly. 82 (1): 37–75. SSRN 2125906.
  14. ^ Humphrey, Thomas (2004). "Ricardo versus Wicksell on Job Losses and Technological Change" (PDF). Economic Quarterly. Fall 2004 (Fall): 5–24. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  15. ^ Humphrey, Thomas M. Rival Notions of Money,Economic Review, 1988, issue Sep, pp. 3–9
  16. ^ "Economic Review". EconPapers. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  17. ^ Humphrey, Thomas M. "Mercantilists and Capitalists: Insights from Doctrinal History". www.richmondfed.org. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  18. ^ Humphrey, Thomas M. (1986). Essays on inflation (Fifth ed.). Richmond, Virginia: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  19. ^ Cate, Thomas (1997). An Encyclopedia of Keynesian Economics. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, Ltd. pp. 95–98. ISBN 1-85898-145-X.
  20. ^ Humphrey, Thomas M. (2012). "Economic Thinking in a Age of Shared Prosperity, review of "Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius," by Sylvia Nasar" (PDF). Richmond Federal Reserve Region Focus. First Quarter: 38.
  21. ^ Humphrey, Thomas M. (2008). "Schumpeter, Joseph (1883–1950)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). Schumpeter, Joseph (1893–1950). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 452–45. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n276. ISBN 978-1412965804. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024.
  22. ^ a b Blaug, Mark (2010). Famous Figures and Diagrams in Economics (Cased). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. pp. 29–37. ISBN 978-1-84844-160-6.
  23. ^ Laidler, David E. W. (1999). Fabricating the Keynesian revolution : studies of the inter-war literature on money, the cycle, and unemployment. Cambridge University Press. pp. 187, 228, 233, 350. ISBN 0521645964.
  24. ^ Bernanke, Benjamin (November 10, 2006). "Monetary Aggregates and Monetary Policy at the Federal Reserve: A Historical Perspective". Federal Reserve Bank. ECB Central Banking Conference. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  25. ^ "FRASER | Discover Economic History | St. Louis Fed". fraser.stlouisfed.org. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
  26. ^ Humphrey, Thomas M.; Timberlake, Richard (January 19, 2010). "YouTube: The Federal Reserve and Lender of Last Resort Policy". www.youtube.com. Richmond, Virginia: University of Richmond. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  27. ^ Humphrey, Thomas M. (2013). "Arresting financial crises: The fed versus the classicals". Working Paper, Levy Economics Institute 751. Bard College, Annandale on the Hudson, NY: Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. hdl:10419/79467.
  28. ^ "Monetary Theory and Policy from Hume and Smith to Wicksell: Money, Credit, and the Economy". eh.net. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
  29. ^ "Bob Keleher's market price approach to monetary policy". Alt-M. 6 June 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  30. ^ Money, exchange, and production : further essays in the history of economic thought. E. Elgar Pub. 1998. ISBN 1858986524.
  31. ^ Merriman, Ann Lloyd (October 25, 1998). "Between the Bookends:Thomas M. Humphrey". No. Sunday. Richmond, Virginia: Richmond Times-Dispatch. p. K5. ...his fourth book, Money, Exchange, and Production: Further Essays in the History of Economic Thought. Published by Edgar Elgar Publishing of Cheltenham in Great Britain and Edward Elgar Publishing of Northhampton, Massachusetts.
  32. ^ Crews, Ed (August 20, 1984). "Fed officer's book deals with causes, cures of inflation". Richmond, Virginia: Richmond News Leader. According to Dr. Humphrey, most current views of inflation were presented in the past. His essays [in the fourth edition] often refer to work done by 18th and 19th century English economists, such as Adam Smith, David Hume and David Ricardo
  33. ^ "Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed". Amazon. Cato Institute. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  34. ^ "Policy Report: Landmark Breakthrough on the Great Depression". Cato Policy Report. Cato Institute. 3 June 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2019.