In “The Inefficiency of Interest-Bearing National Debt,” (JPE, April 1979) we argued that private sector transaction costs are needed in order to explain interest on government debt. It follows that if the government’s transaction costs do not depend on its portfolio, then, barring special...

Monetary policy is analyzed within a model that ignores transaction costs and appeals solely to legal restrictions on private intermediation to explain the coexistence of currency and interest-bearing default-free bonds. The interaction between such legal restrictions and monetary policy is...

Our suggestion consists of three postulates: assets are valued only in terms of their payoffs, perfect foresight, and complete and costless markets under laissez-faire. Together these postulates imply that the crucial anomaly, rate-of-return dominance of “money,” is to be explained by legal...

"Our suggestion consists of three postulates: assets are valued only in terms of their payoffs, perfect foresight, and complete and costless markets under laissez-faire. Together these postulates imply that the crucial anomaly, rate-of-return dominance of "money", "is to be explained by legal...

In "The Inefficiency of Interest-Bearing National Debt," (JPE, April 1979) we argued that private sector transaction costs are needed in order to explain interest on government debt. It follows that if the government's transaction costs do not depend on its portfolio, then, barring special...