Review of G. Deleplace, Ricardo on Money. A Reappraisal

An essential part of Deleplace’s endeavour was to dismantle layers of interpretations that misrepresented Ricardo’s own thought, superimposing concepts and language that pertained to a different theory or applied to a different context. So it may be useful to start this review by stating right away, in full agreement with Deleplace and against much of the extant literature, that in Ricardo’s theory of money: a) gold is the standard of money; b) the depreciation/appreciation of money is measured by the purchasing power of the currency over the standard; c) there is only one monetary theory, applicable to both convertible and inconvertible paper money with or without coins in circulation.