CLEMENT, Simon.

£1,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

A Discourse of the general Notions of Money, Trade, & Exchanges, First edition of this scarce mercantilist pamphlet, uncut and folded as issued. Chi-Yuen Wu notes that "Although the honour of having given the first descriptions of the specie-point mechanism must be shared by Petty, Locke, and Simon Clement, the description of Clement is the most elaborate of the three" (p. 50). In the 1690s, England experienced a severe shortage of its silver currency. Coins were melted down and sold abroad as bullion, while many of those still circulating were mercilessly clipped. Here, Simon Clement (c.1654-c.1730), a London merchant, argues that the bullion drain could be countered by restricting exports, and that the widespread clipping could be resolved by a general recoinage.Clement identifies the mechanism as a self-correcting response to the silver shortage, whereby the outflow of bullion would cause a reduction in money supply, leading to a decline in the domestic price level, a rise in competitiveness, and so, a correction in the balance of payments deficit.

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