This is a great read by William McBride and Kurt Schuler of Cato Institute. It is connected to this paper which argued text-books misguide students by believing that central banks alone create money. Banks do it as well. This paper suggests that banks have done a good job earlier to create money when there were no central banks. There is no reason why they can’t do it again.
They point how banks issued notes in 18th and 19th century. This was an era of free banking:
During the 18th and 19th centuries and for part of the 20th century, more than 60 countries had free banking. The major characteristics of free banking are competitive issue of notes (paper money) and deposits by commercial banks, low legal barriers to entry, little regulation unique to the industry, and no central control of reserves (the monetary base) within the national monetary system (Dowd 1992, White 1995). Among the countries…
View original post 650 more words
Recent Comments