“Not long ago, many economists were convinced that monetary policy should aim at achieving ‘full employment’. Those who looked upon monetary expansion as a way to eradicate almost all unemployment failed to appreciate that persistent unemployment is a non-monetary or ‘natural’...

“There was controversy over how much power the central bank should have and what it should try to do, but no respectable economist suggested that central banking itself was unnecessary or harmful until Hayek finally despaired of it in 1976 and began to argue that the only way to achieve monetary...

“Were free banking to reemerge today, it would probably be based, not on a gold standard, but on irredeemable paper (’fiat’) base money issued by a former or extant central bank. Under this form of free banking, the price level is no longer given, and conventional monetary policy questions...

The style of Money and Banking: The American Experience is one of article and comment. An author provides an article on the issues of money and banking in the U.S. and another academic provides a comment on said article. The table of contents is as follows: Introduction by Clifford F. Thies “Money...

“As an alternative to market failure explanations, we draw on theory and historical evidence to argue that fiscal considerations explain the roles governments typically play in producing and regulating money. Public monopoly production of coins and banknotes, substitution of fiat for commodity...