Wages and Currency: Visualizing Wage Payments
6 March 2008 at 1:34 am Peter G. Klein 1 comment
| Peter Klein |
That’s the title of a virtual exhibition hosted by the International Institute of Social History in the Netherlands. Jan Lucassen has collected data and images showing the connection between coin circulation and wage payments throughout history, particularly for societies about which we know little of labor patterns and wage rates. “As far as wages are paid in currency, in particular in coin, specific patterns of denominations produced and used in space and time may provide insights into the importance of wage labour in those societies.”
Numismatists may also wish to pre-order George Selgin’s forthcoming Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775-1821, a chapter of which you can read here. Two other Selgin papers on private coinage are here and here. As you can see, Selgin’s work has improved considerably since he quit doing stuff like this.
Entry filed under: - Klein -, Business/Economic History, Institutions.
Organizations and Markets 
1.
David Gordon | 6 March 2008 at 2:06 pm
Yes, but he doesn’t have as good a co-author as before.