RESUMO Este artigo apresenta as tentativas de demonstrar a equivalência entre fundos de empréstimo e teorias de taxa de juros sobre preferências pela liquidez feitas por Hicks, Lerner, Tsiang e Patinkin, a fim de mostrar que essas tentativas não foram bem-sucedidas. Isso ocorre porque essas tentativas começaram com concepções erradas sobre quais são as questões em discussão no debate entre fundos de empréstimo e teorias de preferências pela liquidez ou porque elas deturparam uma ou outra das duas teorias. De fato, as tentativas de Hicks e Patinkin desconsideram o fato de que o essencial neste debate foi o mecanismo pelo qual as decisões de poupança e investimento influenciam na determinação da taxa de juros. Por outro lado, as tentativas de Lerner e Tsiang deturpam a relação entre poupança e investimento e o motivo financeiro da demanda por dinheiro que é suposto pelas duas teorias.
ABSTRACT This article presents the attempts to demonstrate the equivalence between loanable funds and liquidity preference theories of interest rate done by Hicks, Lerner, Tsiang and Patinkin in order to show that these attempts were not succeed. That is so because these attempts had started from wrong conceptions about what are the issues under discussion in the debate between loanable funds and liquidity preference theories or because they had misrepresented one or another of both theories. In fact, the attempts done by Hicks and Patinkin disconsider the fact that what was essential in this debate was the mechanism by which saving and investment decisions have influence in the determination of interest rate. On the other hand, the attempts of Lerner and Tsiang misrepresent the relation between saving and investment and the finance motive of demand for money that is supposed by both theories.