David Ricardo

IDEAS

• He wrote his first economics article at 37, firstly in The Morning Chronicle advocating reduction in the note-issuing of the Bank of England and then publishing The High Price of Bullion, a Proof of the Depreciation of Bank Notes in 1810.
• He was also an abolitionist, speaking at a meeting of the Court of the East India Company in March 1823, where he said he regarded slavery as a stain on the character of the nation.

Banking

• Adam Smith argued that free commercial banking, such as the banking system in Scotland which had no central bank when Wealth of Nations was written in 1776, was favorable to economic growth. Writing just a few decades later, Ricardo argued for a central bank, a cause that was taken up by his students, including John Stuart Mill, who was known to favor the laissez-faire policies in every place but banking.
• Ricardo wrote the Plan for the Establishment of a National Bank in 1824 arguing for the autonomy of the central bank as the issuer of money.[19]
• Ricardo proposes that a ratio of gold and Treasury bills, and a fixed claim (asset) against the government, would secure the central bank's liquidity