THORNTON,HENRY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CLASSICAL MONETARY-ECONOMICS

Students of nineteenth-century economics have held Henry Thornton in h igh esteem since his 'rediscovery' by Jacob Viner and Friedrich Hayek in the 1920s. Thornton has been praised for the sophistication of his macroeconomic thinking and for the extent to which he developed ideas later associated with giants such as Knut Wicksell and J.M. Keynes. Ho wever, the consensus has been that he had little effect on the develop ment of British classical monetary economics. I show that the consensu s is wrong by demonstrating that Thornton affected the course of class ical thinking in important ways, particularly through his influence on members of the Banking School. Thornton was not simply a precursor of modern thought but was one of the dominant figures of classical monet ary economics.