(Originally published on November 27, 2013 .) There are, I'm sure, some parts of the Scottish National party's recent blueprint for an independent Scotland to which the British government might reasonably take umbrage. But the plan's call for Scotland's continued use of the pound sterling, which…
I owe a heckuva lot to Friedrich Hayek. Had it not been for him, I might never have heard of "free banking," meaning the genuine article rather than the phony antebellum U.S. version. Certainly I would never have found myself writing about it. Nor, perhaps, would any…
The need for and convenience of a central bank are usually taken for granted. To say that a central bank is a good institution and, therefore, needed, is not enough. Unfortunately, the assumption that central banks are necessary seems to weigh more heavily than the facts that…
One consequence of the financial crisis of 2008-09 has been renewed interest in the merits of contingent convertible debt as a mechanism for equity bail-ins at moments of acute financial distress. Should it fail, a financial institution's contingent bonds are automatically converted into equity shares. History suggests…