In the classical monetary debates, the Banking School held that notes would be equally demand-elastic whether supplied by many or a single issuer. The Free Banking School held that notes would be less demand-elastic if supplied by a single issuer. These assertions have rarely, if ever, been...

According to the classical view, an economy's lender of last resort should be its central bank. For brief periods of time, the bank might suspend convertibility in order to provide the liquidity needed to support the domestic credit market. Recent experience of financial crises demonstrates the...

This paper studies the role of bank notes issued by the private Enskilda banks in the expansion of the Swedish monetary stock under the classic specie standard maintained during the period 1834-1913. The use of balance sheets has made possible the estimation of more accurate and continuous...

The National Monetary Commission was deeply concerned with importing best practice. One important focus was the connection between the money market and international trade. It was said that Britain's lead in the market for “acceptances” originating in international trade was the basis of its...

The National Monetary Commission was deeply concerned with importing best practice. One important focus was the connection between the money market and international trade. It was said that Britain's lead in the market for “acceptances” originating in international trade was the basis of its...

The origins of monetary policy can be traced back to the days of the goldsmith-bankers when a reserve of gold coins was held by them to meet the promise stated on their bank notes: that they could be exchanged for gold. However, this covenant was doomed from the start, due to the avarice of...

After the discovery by the goldsmith-bankers that loans could be made by the issue of the newly accepted means of payments, receipts/bank notes, there was an inevitable next step: deposit money. Bank notes are deposits, but in a different form. Bank deposits are also accounting entries, but they...

It is a well-establish opinion that money creation has its genesis in the loan activities of the goldsmith-bankers in seventeenth-century London. This is accurate for bank note money, which had its origin in the receipts for precious metal deposits issued by the goldsmith-bankers. However, money...

Money creation began before the loan activities of the goldsmith-bankers in seventeenth-century London, in the form of coin clipping, coin debasement, and so on. However, money creation as we know it today (new bank loans create new bank deposits, which is the dominant means of payments) began...

In 1871-73, newly unified Germany adopted the gold standard, replacing the silver-based currencies that had been prevalent in most German states until then. The reform sparked a series of steps in other countries that ultimately ended global bimetallism, i.e., a near-universal fixed exchange...