John Maynard Keynes once marveled at "how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in Bedlam." (Bedlam was the nickname of a London madhouse.) Keynesian or New Keynesian macroeconomists who start with the mistaken premise that a central bank cannot fight recession except by lowering…
The leading arguments for banning large-denomination currency notes are those made in a much-cited working paper by Peter Sands and at book length by Kenneth Rogoff. They have been rebutted persuasively by Pierre Lemieux and Jeffrey Hummel in their respective reviews of Rogoff's book. I have previously…
On November 16th, over 200 people gathered in the Hayek Auditorium here at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, to explore the future of monetary policy at our 35th Annual Monetary Conference. The all-day affair featured four panels of distinguished speakers — including Stanford economist John B….
Kenneth S. Rogoff stands out as the advocate of restricting hand-to-hand currency who has argued the case most comprehensively and probably the most cautiously. I critically reviewed his recent book, The Curse of Cash, in the May 2017 issue of Econ Journal Watch. Here I summarize highlights…
In a classic account of why prohibitions and other economic restrictions harmful to consumers arise and persist, economist Bruce Yandle noted that such restrictions are often promoted by a coalition between two groups. The first group are morally motivated do-gooders ("Baptists") who think that the restrictions will…