Was the Peel Act Ricardian? Monetary rules and policy equivalence, 1821–1844
The Peel Act of 1844 is often portrayed as the legal embodiment of David Ricardo’s monetary ideas. This paper argues that it was not. Ricardo’s final proposal regulated note issue through market signals—the value of paper relative to gold and the foreign exchanges—whereas Peel imposed a quantity constraint tied to bullion reserves. Using monthly circulation data and quotation-level foreign exchange and gold data, the paper evaluates whether these different rules were policy-equivalent over 1821–1844.