Disequilibrium as the Origin, Originality, and Ambivalences of Clower's Microfoundations of Monetary Theory

Abstract

Robert W. Clower’s article “A Reconsideration of the Microfoundations of Monetary Theory” (1967) deeply influenced the course of modern monetary economics. On the one hand, it revealed the deadlocks of Don Patinkin’s project to integrate monetary and Walrasian value theory. On the other hand, it was the fountainhead of the cash-in-advance models a la Robert J. Lucas (1980), one of the most widely used approaches to monetary theory since the 1980s. Despite this influence, there is no detailed study of Clower’s (1967) project to integrate monetary and value theory. My paper aims to fill this gap. This is a difficult task since Clower never completed the monetary theory outlined in his 1967 article. To overcome this difficulty, I characterize the intellectual context from which Clower’s (1967) contribution emerged and have recourse to a rational reconstruction of his project. This reconstruction is based on the analysis of published and unpublished materials, written by Clower before and after the 1967 article. Four conclusions are obtained. First, Clower (1967) intended to reorient Patinkin’s program to integrate monetary and value theory. Second, this reorientation was prompted by Clower’s (1965) influential search for disequilibrium microfoundations to Keynesian macroeconomics. Third, Clower’s (1967) project was to formulate a disequilibrium monetary theory. Fourth, such a project failed because of Clower’s (1965) approach to disequilibrium economics.