Birmingham School (economics)

The Birmingham School was a school of economic thought that emerged in Birmingham, England during the Post-Napoleonic depression that affected England following the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815.

Arguing an underconsumptionist theory – attributing the depression to the fall in demand due to the end of the wars and end of war mobilization – Birmingham School economists opposed the gold standard and advocated the use of an expansionary monetary policy to achieve full employment.

The leading thinker and spokesman for the Birmingham School was the banker Matthias Attwood. Economists who lent the Birmingham School some support included Arthur Young, Patrick Colquhoun and Sir John Sinclair.^[1]

Dismissed at the time as "currency cranks" or "crude inflationists", the theories of the Birmingham School are now recognized as embryonic versions of the Keynesian economics of the 1930s.^[2] Some of Attwood's writings contain formulations of the multiplier effect and an income-expenditure model.^[3] Joseph Schumpeter, in his 1954 History of Economic Analysis wrote that "it is from these writings that any study of modern ideas on monetary management ought to start".^[4]

References

^ Checkland 1948, p. 2
^ Kindleberger 1985, pp. 109–110
^ Glasner 1997, p. 22
^ Schumpeter 1954, p. 683

Bibliography

Miller, Henry. "Radicals, Tories or Monomaniacs? The Birmingham Currency Reformers in the House of Commons, 1832-67," Parliamentary History (2012) 31#3 pp 354-377.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1954), History of economic analysis, Routledge (published 1994),
Glasner, David (1997), "Attwood, Thomas (1783-1856)", in Glasner, David, Business Cycles and Depressions: An Encyclopedia, Taylor & Francis, pp. 22–23,

Schools of economic thought

Pre-modern	Ancient schools Medieval Islamic Scholasticism

Early modern	Cameralism Mercantilism Physiocrats School of Salamanca

Modern	American (National) Anarchist Birmingham Classical English historical Georgism German historical Lausanne Malthusian Marxian Mutualism Neoclassical Neomercantilism Ricardian

20th and 21st century	Austrian Capability approach Carnegie Chicago Circuitism Constitutional Ecological Evolutionary Feminist Institutional Keynesian Modern Monetary Theory Monetarism Neo-Keynesian Neo-Malthusian Neo-Marxian Neo-Ricardian New classical New institutional Post-Keynesian Public choice Saltwater/Freshwater Stockholm Supply-side Virginia

Related	Economics Heterodox economics History of economic thought History of macroeconomic thought

Categories

This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Public Library of Science, The Encyclopedia of Life, Open Book Publishers (OBP), PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and USA.gov, which sources content from all federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government publication portals (.gov, .mil, .edu). Funding for USA.gov and content contributors is made possible from the U.S. Congress, E-Government Act of 2002.

Crowd sourced content that is contributed to World Heritage Encyclopedia is peer reviewed and edited by our editorial staff to ensure quality scholarly research articles.

By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. World Heritage Encyclopedia™ is a registered trademark of the World Public Library Association, a non-profit organization.

Birmingham School (economics)