Basil J Moore’s Horizontalists and verticalists: An appraisal 25 years later

Abstract

In 1988 Basil Moore published his book Horizontalists and Verticalists: The Macroeconomics of Credit Money, which this year celebrates its 25th birthday. We discuss this book from today’s perspective, and in particular whether Moore’s main assertions have been validated or rejected by the development of central bank practice and academic monetary economics. We find that the book has impressively stood the test of time and, despite part of textbook economics still insisting on the money multiplier as an explanation for the money supply, it is not much of an exaggeration to say that we have all become ‘Horizontalists’ in the last 25 years.