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.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Baltensperger, Ernst (1974) “The Precautionary Demand for Reserves”, American Economic Review, 64 (March): 205–10.
——(1980) “Alternative Approaches to the Theory of the Banking Firm”, Journal of Monetary Economics, 6 (January): 1–37.
Black, Fischer (1970) “Banking and Interest Rates in a World without Money”, Journal of Bank Research, 1 (Autumn): 9–20.
Christ, Carl F. (1957) “Patinkin on Money, Interest and Prices”, Journal of Political Economy, 65 (August): 347–54.
——(1989) “On Free Banking: Essay Review of The Theory of Free Banking by George Selgin”, Market Process, 7 (Spring): 5–10.
Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro (1888) “The Mathematical Theory of Banking”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Association, 51 (March): 113–27.
Fama, Eugene (1980) “Banking in the Theory of Finance”, Journal of Monetary Economics, 6 (February): 39–57.
Greenfield, Robert, and Leland Yeager (1983) “A Laissez-Faire Approach to Monetary Stability”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 15 (August): 302–15.
Hall, Robert E. (1982) “Explorations in the Gold Standard and Related Policies for Stabilizing the Dollar”, in Robert E. Hall (ed.), Inflation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press for the National Bureau of Economic Research, pp. 111–22.
McCallum, Bennett (1985) “Bank Deregulation, Accounting Systems of Exchange, and the Unit of Account: A Critical Review”, in Karl Brunner and Allan Meltzer (eds.), Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, 23 (Autumn): 13–45.
McElroy, F. W. (1978) “A Simple Method of Causal Ordering”, International Economic Review, 19 (February): 1–23.
Orr, Daniel, and W. G. Mellon (1961) “Stochastic Reserve Losses and Expansion of Bank Credit”, American Economic Review, 51 (September): 614–23. See also errata in volume 53 (September 1963): 745.
Patinkin, D. (1956, 1965, 1989) Money, Interest, and Prices, Evanston, Ill.: Row Peterson, 1956; New York: Harper and Row, 1965; 2nd ed. Abridged, with a new introduction. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989.
Selgin, George A. (1988) The Theory of Free Banking: Money Supply under Competitive Note Issue, Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.
White, Lawrence H. (1984) Free Banking in Britain: Theory, Experience, and Debate, 1800–1845, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1993 Haim Barkai, Stanley Fischer and Nissan Liviatan
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
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
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12535-7_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-12537-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-12535-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Economics & Finance CollectionEconomics and Finance (R0)