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ARTICLES:
Martín de Azpilcueta: The Spanish Scholastic on Usury and Time-Preference
Issue: 9:2 (the thirty fourth issue)
Martín de Azpilcueta and his fellow Spanish Scholastics writing and teaching
at the University of Salamanca during Spain’s Golden Age are rightly pointed
to by historians of economic thought as being major contributors toward, if not
outright founders of modern economic theory. Among these is the theory of
time-preference for which Azpilcueta has repeatedly been given the credit for
discovering. However, this discovery is a curious one given how the same man,
Azpilcueta, condemned usury in general during his whole life. If Azpilcueta
did in fact discover this theory and fully understand its implications, we would
reasonably expect him to have questioned his support for the ban on charging
an interest on a loan. This paper, therefore, challenges the claim that
Azpilcueta understood and revived time-preference theory and shows how his
understanding was much more nuanced, and, at times, inconsistent.
at the University of Salamanca during Spain’s Golden Age are rightly pointed
to by historians of economic thought as being major contributors toward, if not
outright founders of modern economic theory. Among these is the theory of
time-preference for which Azpilcueta has repeatedly been given the credit for
discovering. However, this discovery is a curious one given how the same man,
Azpilcueta, condemned usury in general during his whole life. If Azpilcueta
did in fact discover this theory and fully understand its implications, we would
reasonably expect him to have questioned his support for the ban on charging
an interest on a loan. This paper, therefore, challenges the claim that
Azpilcueta understood and revived time-preference theory and shows how his
understanding was much more nuanced, and, at times, inconsistent.
