Thomas Philippon’s The Great Reversal is an important book in which he warns of the decline of competition in many U.S. product markets. Not having studied antitrust issues for some time, I will leave criticism of his general thesis—that competition has indeed declined and that this is…
The Fall 2019 edition of the Cato Journal, the Cato Institute’s interdisciplinary journal of public policy, is now available online. Readers of Alt-M will find the articles on monetary and financial topics of special interest. Their topics range from financial inclusion, to macroprudential policy, to Modern Monetary…
How should central bankers provide aid to struggling financial institutions during a panic? Ask 19th-century economic theorist Walter Bagehot. Or, if you can't do that, ask his biographer: acclaimed author, publisher, and monetary scholar James Grant. Join Grant and the Cato Institute's George Selgin on Wednesday, September…
The Cato Institute's newest book, Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed: Sources of Monetary Disorder, 1922–1938 is out now — and it's already getting rave reviews for challenging conventional wisdom on the Great Depression. In Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed, preeminent monetary…
Of many interesting things said during Cato's 36th Monetary Conference, one in particular tempted me to rush to the podium to give its author a big hug. The speaker, Joe Gagnon of the Peterson Institute, was calling into question the now-conventional wisdom that, to avoid interfering with…