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When is Free Banking More Stable Than Regulated Banking?

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Monetary Theory and Thought

Abstract

This paper presents a model of an open economy with free banking, and asks what features of free banking permit its advocates to say that it is more stable than regulated banking, both with respect to inflation and with respect to bank runs, failures and panics.

It is a great honour to be invited to take part in this conference in celebration of the work of Don Patinkin. I am indebted to him for stimulating my interest in monetary economics beginning many years ago, and for his contributions ever since, especially his classic book, Money, Interest, and Prices (1956, 1965, 1989), which I reviewed (1957). I am grateful to David Bizer, Louis Maccini, Allan Meltzer, Hugh Rose and George Selgin for helpful discussions concerning the topic of this paper, and to Stanley Fischer for constructive suggestions on an earlier draft.

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© 1993 Haim Barkai, Stanley Fischer and Nissan Liviatan

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Christ, C.F. (1993). When is Free Banking More Stable Than Regulated Banking?. In: Barkai, H., Fischer, S., Liviatan, N. (eds) Monetary Theory and Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12535-7_9

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