Try it sometime

J.W. Mason from 2013:

I don't think the idea of "money" as something that has a quantity applies to the credit-money world of today

The implicit assumption underlying Mason's statement is that "the credit-money world of today" is just as viable as the quantity-of-money world was in its day.

I think that's an incorrect assumption.

J.W. Mason, more recently:

I don’t think a “quantity of money” has been an important part of orthodox macroeconomics or any major heterodox school for many, many years.

Here, Mason's not talking about the economy. He's talking about economics, or schools of economic thought. I think he's right. Economists no longer think of the “quantity of money” as an important part of macroeconomics.


Maybe they don't think in terms of the quantity of money because we live in a credit-money world today.

As for myself, I think in terms of the quantity of credit-money relative to the quantity of non-credit money. Try it sometime.