ABSTRACT
There was a stage in the evolution of analytical economics during which it was fashionable to regard money as a veil concealing the operation of the fundamental processes that were regarded as the theorist’s true concern. This notion rings strange to the lay student of affairs, likely to be impressed with the pervasive importance of finance in all aspects of economic activity. Whatever the changing emphases as economists continue to debate the relative strength of ‘real’ and ‘financial’ influences on aggregate demand and output, and however much some may regard lay observers as the dupes of surface appearances, the ubiquity of financial influences is undeniable, and it creates a problem for the expositor of the economics of finance.
