This paper reexamines the view that banking regulation and central banking arose to counter market 'failures.' It investigates the factors that led bankers to form clubs and examines the 'regulations' imposed by clubs on their members. It suggests that such regulation is different from...

This paper assesses the monetary economics of Henry Meulen, one of the more important forerunners of the "new monetary economics" and the modern free banking school. Meulen's monetary economics was original though flawed. He had important insights into the option clause, the impact of legal...

This paper reexamines the hypothesis of Dean S. Dutton and William P. Gramm, and Edi Karni that the wage rate influences the demand for money as a proxy for the value of transactions time. It develops "value of time" transactions models, which yield demand for money equations that have a real...

This paper sets out the mechanics and equilibrating processes of indirectly convertible monetary systems in which currency-issuing banks redeem their currency with redemption media of the same value as the commodity or commodity basket that defines the dollar. It goes on to investigate the...

This paper presents a model of the gold standard in which technology and preferences are modeled explicitly and account is taken of both the durability of gold and the exhaustibility of gold ore. The authors examine the steady state and its associated dynamics and show how the steady-state price...