Economists have long debated the relationship of bank credit to the business cycle. The attribution of economic cycles to the "inherent instability" of fractional-reserve banking has been advanced not only by Austrian scholars in the tradition of Murray Rothbard, but also by a number of...

Theories of bank contagion often highlight the idea that financial crises frequently start as local shocks and then spread to other financial institutions. Conditions in Helena, Montana at the onset of the Panic of 1893 present an ideal laboratory for testing these theories. We use a unique...

New France, like most European colonies in the New World, suffered from a persistent shortage of metal coins. As Quebec could only legally import from France, their standards of living were constrained by their ability to export a few primary products (mostly fur, cod, timber and wheat)....

The present work estimates collected seigniorage levels in the Venezuelan economy from 1994Q1 to 2018Q2 and tries to determine when and if a seigniorage-maximizing inflation rate occurred and this way provide a rational on the development of hyperinflation in the country. Results suggest that...

Although it is sometimes considered one of a kind, or a first-mover monopolist in the market for cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is surrounded by effective competitors. Between March 2013 and December 2014, while the market capitalization of Bitcoin grew four-fold, the market cap of other...

This paper is for presentation at a program on the dismemberment of the economics program at the University of Virginia in the mid-1960s. It is a literary flying buttress to “Virginia Political Economy, Rationally Reconstructed.” Where the earlier paper mostly looks forward from 1963, this...

The theory of interventionism argues that government interventions are inherently destabilizing which helps explain the growth of government. I argue that the theory of interventionism is also useful process of economic growth. At first, an intervention reduces living as a level change. However,...

Regulation by the state can benefit or harm any business in society. While the market provides for consumers rather than special interests, rationally acting interests will be incentivized to use political means to capture rents, particularly if public clamor for regulation exists. The formation...

Canada is one of the richest countries in the world today. It stands above most countries in the Americas. It is also noticeably poorer than its American neighbour in spite of considerable geographic similarities. These two facts were true as early as the 17th century. Why? An understanding of...

From the 19th century to the 1940's, Quebec remained poorer and less economically developed than the rest of Canada in general and poorer than Ontario in particular. This placed Quebec at the bottom of North American rankings of living standards. One prominent hypothesis for the initiation of...