Tom Duncan

“Some Unpleasant Monetarist Arithmetic”

“In his presidential address to the American Economic Association (AEA), Milton Friedman (1968) warned not to expect too much from monetary policy. In particular, Friedman argued that monetary policy could […]

The Great Reflation

“The financial crisis, the speculative bubble leading up to it, and the aftermath have proven once again just how true the old saying is that if you want to know […]

The Experience of Free Banking

“There was controversy over how much power the central bank should have and what it should try to do, but no respectable economist suggested that central banking itself was unnecessary […]

“Illinois Free Banking Experience”

“Recent studies by Rolnick and Weber (1983, 1984) have presented evidence challenging the conventional view of the Free Banking Era (1837-1863). The conventional view depicts a period of financial chaos […]

“New Evidence on the Free Banking Era”

“The United States has experienced many periods of major banking panics during which a large number of banks have failed and financial markets have been in considerable disarray. The period […]

“Free Banking and Information Asymmetry”

“A traditional argument against free banking is that it will collapse because of information externalities: it is impossible for depositors to tell whether a high deposit rate offered by a […]

“Free Banking and Monetary Control”

“Were free banking to reemerge today, it would probably be based, not on a gold standard, but on irredeemable paper (‘fiat’) base money issued by a former or extant central […]

“The Gold Standard: A Principled Case”

“In recent months, we have witnessed fierce arguments between, on the one side, those who defend the current system of “fiat money,” in which, as John Maynard Keynes stated, money […]