Arguing an
underconsumptionist theory – attributing the depression to the fall in demand due to the end of the wars and end of war mobilization – Birmingham School economists opposed the
gold standard and advocated the use of an
expansionary monetary policy to achieve
full employment. The leading thinker and spokesman for the Birmingham School was the banker
Thomas Attwood. Other notable figures included
George Frederick Muntz and Thomas Attwood's brother
Matthias Attwood. Economists who lent the Birmingham School some support included
Arthur Young,
Patrick Colquhoun and
Sir John Sinclair. Dismissed at the time as "currency cranks" or "crude
inflationists", the theories of the Birmingham School are now recognized as embryonic versions of the
Keynesian economics of the 1930s. Some of Attwood's writings contain formulations of the
multiplier effect and an
income-expenditure model. In his 1954
History of Economic Analysis,
Joseph Schumpeter wrote that "it is from these writings that any study of modern ideas on monetary management ought to start". ==See also==