In the 1990s I wrote extensively on currency boards with Steve H. Hanke of Johns Hopkins University. The subject had a vogue among economists for several years, but faded after the crash of Argentina's "convertibility" system in late 2001 and early 2002 (which I analyzed here). Steve…
…not that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play, but that Lithuania adopted a quasi currency board. Actually, it was 20 years ago yesterday, when I meant to put up this post. The Lithuanians first heard about the currency board idea from George Selgin, Larry White, and…
Here is my long promised, though not likely long anticipated, post on the "backing" theory of money. The modern controversy over "backing" originates from this article by Neil Wallace and Thomas Sargent. In the article they offer " a simple model that is compatible with the principle of finance…
Earlier this month Hong Kong passed a milestone: 30 years since it re-established a currency board system. The 99 years since the start of World War I have been quite turbulent in terms of monetary policy. Not many places have stuck with the same exchange rate, or,…
Paul Marks, a frequent poster of comments, claims that the concept of a gold standard is misleading because "either gold is the money or it is not." Sorry, the epigones of Murray Rothbard need to learn a lot more monetary history here. There are many kinds of…