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The Impact of Sudden Accessions of Treasure upon Prices and Real Wages
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
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During the course of history there have been three occassions upon which great masses of treasure—gold and silver—have suddenly, or within the span of a comparatively few years, been released and thrown upon the world's markets. These occasions have been at the end of the fourth century B.C., when Alexander the Great captured the hoards of the Persian kings; during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the treasures of Mexico and Peru were brought to Europe by the Spaniards, and during the nineteenth century with the discovery of gold first in California and Australia and later in Alaska and South Africa. We are singularly fortunate in having for our consideration, price series which exhibit the effect of these sudden accessions of treasure for all three periods. The object of the present article will be to examine the first two of these momentous happenings.
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- Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , February 1946 , pp. 1 - 17
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- Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1946
References
1 I am most grateful for the care with which the first part of this paper was read in manuscript by Professor J. A. O. Larsen ami the second part by Professor Earl J. Hamilton. Both these gentiemen have made most valuable suggestions and saved me from errors both in fact and inference.
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