Price–specie flow mechanism
Economic model of trade balance / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The price–specie flow mechanism is a model developed by Scottish economist David Hume (1711–1776) to illustrate how trade imbalances can self-correct and adjust under the gold standard. Hume expounded his argument in Of the Balance of Trade, which he wrote to counter the Mercantilist idea that a nation should strive for a positive balance of trade (i.e., greater exports than imports). In short, the "increase in domestic prices due to the gold inflow would discourage exports and encourage imports, thus automatically limiting the amount by which exports would exceed imports".[1]
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Hume first elaborated on the mechanism in a 1749 letter to Montesquieu.[2]