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Ideas for an Alternative Monetary Future

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Ideas for an Alternative Monetary Future

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George Selgin
About George Selgin
George Selgin is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Georgia. His research covers a broad range of topics within the field of monetary economics, including monetary history, macroeconomic theory, and the history of monetary thought. He is the author of The Theory of Free Banking (Rowman & Littlefield, 1988), Bank Deregulation and Monetary Order (Routledge, 1996), Less Than Zero: The Case for a Falling Price Level in a Growing Economy (The Institute of Economic Affairs, 1997), and, most recently, Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage (University of Michigan Press, 2008). Selgin is one of the founders, along with Kevin Dowd and Lawrence H. White, of the Modern Free Banking School, which draws its inspiration from the writings of Friedrich Hayek on denationalization of money and choice in currency. Selgin has written for numerous scholarly journals, including the British Numismatic Journal, The Economic Journal, the Economic History Review, the Journal of Economic Literature, and the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, and for popular outlets such as The Christian Science Monitor, The Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. Selgin retired from the University of Georgia to join Cato in September 2014. He has also taught at George Mason University, the University of Hong Kong, and West Virginia University. He holds a B.A. in economics and zoology from Drew University, and a Ph.D. in economics from New York University.
gold standard, commodity prices, inflation, volatility, Stephen Moore, Herman Cain, Jerome Powell, Judy Shelton
Commodity Money, Fiat Money, News, The Fed & Central Banks

On Targeting the Price of Gold

George Selgin/August 29, 2019September 4, 2019 /5 Comments

Thanks to President's Trump's picks for prospective Fed Board nominees, the subject of gold price targeting (or a gold "price rule") is getting attention once again. The idea, which got a lot of attention back in the 1980s, after Arthur Laffer  and other supply-siders, including Alan Reynolds,…

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yield curve, federal reserve, fed, inversion
Events, Financial Markets, Inflation & Deflation, Money & Politics, News, The Fed & Central Banks

How to Flip a Yield Curve

George Selgin/August 19, 2019November 10, 2019 /10 Comments

If the recent yield curve panic proves anything, it proves that, in financial markets, what may start out as a mere statistical correlation, and possibly a spurious one, can become a genuine causal relationship. In particular, if enough people subscribe to a post-hoc fallacy, it may not…

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Federal Reserve, Floor system, corridor system, balance sheet, SOFR, credit markets
Financial Markets, Money & Politics, The Fed & Central Banks

Fed Watchers Should Keep an Eye on the IOER-SOFR Spread

George Selgin/July 25, 2019September 20, 2019 /3 Comments

Regular Alt-M readers are no doubt looking forward to the FOMC's announcement next Wednesday. But I doubt they'll be sitting at the edges of their seats between now and then, much less biting their fingernails. Markets have, after all, been anticipating a modest Fed cut ever since…

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Federal Reserve, gold standard, free market, Libra
Commodity Money, Economic History, Economic Thought

Is There Such a Thing as a Free-Market Gold Standard?

George Selgin/July 9, 2019July 12, 2019 /24 Comments

Twice recently I've come across arguments to the effect that, despite what some libertarians, goldbugs, cryptocurrency fans, and Fed Board candidates imagine, the idea that the historical gold standard kept governments from managing money, leaving the job to market forces, is a myth. In his June 24th…

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Federal Reserve, Fed Listens, Chicago Fed, monetary policy, dual mandate
Money & Politics, News, The Fed & Central Banks

The Fed's Chicago Shindig

George Selgin/June 26, 2019June 26, 2019 /2 Comments

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to attend the Federal Reserve's much-anticipated conference on "Monetary Policy Strategy, Tools, and Communication Practices." This was the "research" component of a series of Fed Listens events kicked off this February and wrapped-up last week. The aim of the series…

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Contributors

  • George Selgin
  • Larry White
  • Hu McCulloch
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  • The Fed & Central Banks (310)
  • Uncategorized (11)

Recent Posts

  • Fannie and Freddie Need Fixing—Urgently: A Response to Joe Nocera
  • Why There Has Been No Great Reversal in U.S. Banking
  • Warren Mosler and the Great American Banking Myth
  • Stop the Presses! or, How the Fed Can Avoid Reserve Shortages without Bulking-Up,
    Part 2
  • Stop the Presses! or, How the Fed Can Avoid Reserve Shortages without Bulking-Up,
    Part 1
  • Cato's 37th Annual Monetary Conference: A Shadow Review of Fed Policy
  • Financial Inclusion without Finance? The Misguided Quest to Limit Choice in Consumer Credit

Recent Comments

  • MJoffe on Fannie and Freddie Need Fixing—Urgently: A Response to Joe Nocera
  • Bill Bergman on Fannie and Freddie Need Fixing—Urgently: A Response to Joe Nocera
  • Per Kurowski on Warren Mosler and the Great American Banking Myth
  • Selgin on Warren Mosler and the Great American Banking Myth
  • Per Kurowski on Warren Mosler and the Great American Banking Myth

About Us

Welcome to Alt-M, a community devoted to exploring and promoting ideas for an alternative monetary future. Our goal is to reveal the shortcomings of today’s centralized, bureaucratic, and discretionary monetary arrangements, and to bring serious consideration of real alternatives to the center stage of current monetary and financial reform debates.

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