Intérêt et prix (1898) Commentaire de R. Boyer - article ; n°2 ; vol.3, pg 143-178

Kurt Wicksell

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Revue française d'économie - Année 1988 - Volume 3 - Numéro 2 - Pages 143-178
36 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: REVUE_FRANCAISE_D-ECONOMIE
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1988
• Nombre de lectures: 30
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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Kurt Wicksell
Intérêt et prix (1898) Commentaire de R. Boyer
In: Revue française d'économie. Volume 3 N°2, 1988. pp. 143-178.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Wicksell Kurt. Intérêt et prix (1898) Commentaire de R. Boyer. In: Revue française d'économie. Volume 3 N°2, 1988. pp. 143-
178.
doi : 10.3406/rfeco.1988.1180
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rfeco_0769-0479_1988_num_3_2_1180Knut
WICKSELL
Intérêt et prix
(1936)
and determined on necessarily money loans tends and which the neither by all same supply lending is neutral to as and raise the were here in demand rate respect nor effected is of a to interest certain if to lower no in commodity use the which rate them. were form of would made interest This prices, of real be of is 144 Knut Wicksell
capital goods. It comes to much the same thing to describe
it as the current value of the natural rate of interest on
capital.
It is usually said that in modern communities capital (of the
mobile kind) is lent in the form of money. But this is a metaphorical and
inexact manner of speaking which can easily lead to error. Liquid
capital, which is what we are considering, or in other words goods, are
never lent-they are never given and taken by way of borrowing-they
are simply bought or sold.
Even merchandise credit does not involve any lending of
commodities, either from the legal or from the economic point of view.
It represents a sale where payment is temporarily postponed, or, if you
like, a cash transaction combined with a money loan. Otherwise it
would be necessary to pay back the same or an identical parcel of
goods, together with accrued interest; or there would have to be a
guarantee that in exchange for the stipulated sum of money the same
quantity of commodities would be obtainable at the time of payment
as at the time of purchase; but this is never the case.
We shall now try, by means of a suitable illustra
tion, to find a more precise basis for our proposition. Let
us take an entrepreneur who possesses no capital of his
own, or at least no liquid capital. He will require money
for the purchase of raw materials and for the payment of
wages and rents, and also for his own living expenses
during the period of production. (There are other require
ments, for instance taxation, but for the sake of simplicity
these will be neglected.) All this money may be supposed
to be devoted to the purchase of finished consumption
goods, with which the workers and property owners and
also the entrepreneur, meet their own requirements ; in so
far as it is used for the purchase of raw materials, the
manufacturers of the raw materials pay it out in their turn
on wages and rents (and keep some of it for themselves),
and it is all once again exchanged for finished consumpt
ion goods. Now liquid capital must originate from Knut Wicksell 145
somewhere. For the sake of simplicity it will be assumed
that the present owners of the available consumption
goods are capitalists; that is to say, that they have no
immediate need either for the goods themselves of for
such proceeds as they obtain for them in the form of other
goods or of money. They are in a position, if necessary, to
postpone payment up to a period of, let us say, one year.
It may be supposed in theory that the entrepre
neur borrows these consumption goods from the capital
ists in kind, and then pays them out in kind in the shape
of wages and rents. At the end of the period of production
he repays the loan out of his own product, either directly
or after exchanging it for other commodities (relative
prices being assumed to remain unaltered). If this proce
dure were adopted by all entrepreneurs who work with
borrowed capital, competition would bring about a
certain rate of interest that would have to be paid to the
capitalists in the form of some commodity or other. The
amount of this rate of interest would be determined by the
«supply and demand» for capital. However, this phrase
tells us very little. But it is possible to set for the rate of
interest an upper limit which has a more palpable signifi
cance. This limiting value is the amount by which the total
product (or its equivalent in other commodities) exceeds
the sum of the wages, rents, etc., that have to be paid out.
The magnitude of this excess depends on the productivity
of the business on the one hand, and on the other hand on
the level of wages and rents. This is a matter which will be
discussed more fully in the next chapter. It is clear that the
entrepreneur cannot pay more than this limiting amount.
Moreover, he will be forced as a result of competition with
other entrepreneurs to pay very nearly as much; for
unavoidable risks cancel out in the course of a long
succession of economic periods, and the entrepreneur's
own profit is confined to the amount which corresponds 146 KnutWicksell
to the actual mental effort of the entrepreneur (and to the
rents on such elements of monopoly as he may possess,
like business secrets, special advantages of situation or of
clientèle, unless these are regarded as additional sources of
income).
But for reasons connected with the conception of subjective
value, the probability that an entrepreneur will make a profit must
always be somewhat greater than the probability that he will make a
loss. For otherwise his «moral expectation» would be negative. In
many cases, however, the entrepreneurs' gambling spirit will prevent
this rule from applying to their behaviour.
Now if money is loaned at this same rate of
interest, it serves as nothing more than a cloak to cover a
procedure which, from the purely formal point of view,
could have been carried on equally well without it. The
conditions of economic equilibrium are fulfilled in preci
sely the same manner. In such a case, there is no occasion
for any alteration in the level of prices. In a developed
credit system, the various transactions involve the use of
an indefinitely small amount of money, and if cheques (or
uncovered notes) are in general use, there is no need for
metallic money at all. AH that happens is that the banks
extend to the entrepreneurs credits against which they
draw cheques. These cheques (or notes) pass into the
hands of workers and property owners in the form of
wages and rents, and are then passed on in payment for
the ordinary purposes of consumption into the hands of
the capitalists, who for the sake of simplicity will be
supposed at the same time to be traders. Finally, they are
presented by the capitalists to the banks, where are
transformed into deposits. The difference between the
rate of interest obtainable by direct lending to others and
the rate paid by the banks to depositors, is compensated
by the greater security and convenience offered by the
banks. (Furthermore, creditors and debtors may grad- Knut Wicksell 147
ually sever their temporary relations with their bank and
enter into direct relations with on another; but we are
abstracting from this possibility.) At the end of the period
of production, when the finished products become availa
ble, the trader-capitalists renew their stocks. They draw
on their credits with their bank by means of cheques (or
in the form of notes), and so buy the entrepreneurs'
produce. The entrepreneurs in their turn present these
cheques at the bank and so liquidate their liability to the
bank. If they desire to continue in production, as would
normally be the case, they will soon draw out once more
almost the same sum by way of a credit. And so the
procedure will repeat itself.
There is here nothing calculated either to raise or
to lower prices. It is true that as a result of changes in the
conditions of production, due for instance to technical
progress, first one and then another group of commodities
will be obtainable with a smaller expenditure of labour
and other factors of production, and that this must cause
continual disturbances in relative values. But there is no
apparent reason for any alteration in the general level of
money prices. An increase in the supply of certain groups
of commodities means an increase in the real demand for
all other groups of commodities. Why then should it bring
about a fall in the average level of prices, it being assumed
that money is obtainable in any desired quantity on terms
which correspond to the real advantages entailed in the
use of credit ?
Now let us suppose that the banks and other
lenders of money lend at a different rate of interest, either
lower or higher, from that which corresponds to the
current value of the natural rate of interest on capital. The
economic equilibrium of the system is ipso facto disturbed.
If prices remain unchanged, entrepreneurs will in the first
instance obtain a surplus profit (at the cost of the 148 KnutWicksell
capitalists) over and above their real entrepreneur profit
or wage. This will continue to accrue so long as the rate of
interest remains in the same relative position. They will
inevitably be induced to e