Richard Timberlake

Professor of economics (1922–2020)

Richard Timberlake
Born	Richard Henry Timberlake, Jr. (1922-06-24)June 24, 1922 Steubenville, Ohio, U.S.
Died	May 22, 2020(2020-05-22) (aged 97) Athens, Georgia, U.S.
Nationality	American

Academic career
Field	Economics
Institution	University of Georgia (1964–1990)
School or tradition	Free Banking
Alma mater	University of Chicago (Ph.D.), 1957
Influences	Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Earl J. Hamilton
Contributions	Real bills doctrine as the origin of the Great Depression, free banking

Richard Henry Timberlake Jr. (June 24, 1922 – May 22, 2020) was an American economist who was Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia for much of his career. He became a leading advocate of free banking, the belief that money should be issued by private companies, not by a government monopoly. He wrote about the Legal Tender Cases of the U.S. Supreme Court in his book Constitutional Money: A Review of the Supreme Court's Monetary Decisions.

History

Born in Steubenville, Ohio on June 24, 1922, Timberlake was in the US military in World War II. He became a pilot in the U.S. Air Forces and flew 26 missions as a co-pilot in the 8th Air Force. He was awarded three Purple Hearts. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts at Kenyon College in 1946, a Master's at Columbia University in 1950, and a Ph.D in 1959 from the University of Chicago where he studied under Milton Friedman and Earl J. Hamilton.

He then taught economics at Muhlenberg College, Norwich University, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Florida State University, and the University of Georgia from 1963–1990, when he retired. Timberlake's research was on the history of money, central banking, and monetary policy. He died in Georgia on May 22, 2020.

Ideas

Timberlake's research on the development of private moneys occurred at the time of Friedrich Hayek's idea of The Denationalisation of Money, extending and expanding upon it in coordination with the free banking movement. He believed that, instead of a government-imposed central bank, there should be a free market in the production of money, with banks choosing how to issue their own, competing currencies.

Timberlake also examined the causes of the Great Depression, and emphasized the switch of the Federal Reserve, starting in 1929, to the real bills doctrine of money management, and an anti-speculation policy that severely reduced bank reserves and the amount of deposit money that the banks could create. The money supply contracted by 30% in four years, something that no market economy could tolerate. Along with Hayek of the Austrian school, Milton Friedman of the Chicago school, and even the Keynesians, Timberlake saw this Fed policy as the primary cause of the Great Depression.

However, Timberlake did not reject the gold standard. While many economists blamed the gold standard for the monetary collapse, Timberlake cited data that refutes the validity of their complaints. He showed that the Fed Banks and U.S. Treasury had plenty of gold in the 1929–1933 period. Timberlake concluded that government interference with gold standard adjustments caused most of the trouble in the past, producing cycles of money growth and deflation, panic and depression.

Timberlake's papers are housed at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University.

Politics

Timberlake was active in politics as a member of the Libertarian Party. He was involved in the Harry Browne presidential campaign, writing and signing open letters advocating various positions, such as school choice and rejection of policies that would have raised taxes. In the past he was a vocal and outspoken opponent of the science behind anthropogenic climate change, writing a number of op-ed pieces for the Athens Banner Herald. He was an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

Works

Money and Banking, with Edward Selby (1972)
The origins of central banking in the United States. Harvard University Press. 1978. ISBN 978-0-674-64480-9.
Gold, Greenbacks, and the Constitution (1991)
Money and the Nation State, with Kevin Dowd (1998)
Monetary Policy in the United States: An Intellectual and Institutional History. University of Chicago Press. 1993. ISBN 978-0-226-80384-5.
They Never Saw Me Then (2002)
Constitutional Money: A Review of the Supreme Court’s Monetary Decisions (2013)
Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed: Sources of Monetary Disorder – 1922–1938, with Thomas M. Humphrey (2019) ISBN 978-1948647557

Articles in:

The New Palgrave Dictionary of Money and Finance
The Encyclopedia of Business History and Biography

References

"Directory of Members". 1969.
"Authors · Econ Journal Watch". econjwatch.org.
"Richard Timberlake in front of his barracks in October of 1943.JPG". Rockdale Citizen & Newton Citizen. 20 September 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
"Interview – Richard Timberlake" (PDF). Richmond Fed. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
Richard H. Timberlake Jr. at Cato.org
"Richard Timberlake Obituary – Athens, GA". Dignity Memorial.
Gold Standards and the Real Bills Doctrine in U.S. Monetary Policy by Richard H. Timberlake in Econ Journal Watch
Timberlake, Jr., Richard H. (2007). "Gold Standards and the Real Bills Doctrine in U.S Monetary Policy" (PDF). The Independent: 325–354. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
"What Should The Federal Government Do About The Economy? – An Economist's Perspective". Libertarian Party of Georgia. March 20, 2009.
Dorn, James (22 June 2012). "Cato Adjunct Scholar Richard Timberlake Turns 90". Cato Institute. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
Nichol, John; Rennell, Tony (2007). Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War, 1944–45. Macmillan. ISBN 978-1429907361. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
Timberlake, Richard H. (2013). Constitutional money : a review of the Supreme Court's monetary decisions (Hard cover first ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 247. ISBN 978-1-107-03254-5.
"Policy Report: Landmark Breakthrough on the Great Depression". Cato Institute. 3 June 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2019.

External links

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