Money and Banking

If you've wanted to read Human Action, this is your opportunity to hear it explained by great economists and scholars!

Robert Murphy defines some of the conventional “monetary aggregates,” such as M1 and M2, and gives the textbook rundown of how the Federal Reserve and commercial banking system “create money” when the Fed buys assets and the commercial banks extend new loans.

Why do we have money in the first place? Where does it come from, and what determines its form? What qualities make for a good money? What role do banks play—is it something other than what money itself does for us?

Judy Shelton may be a tolerable—at least to Republicans—candidate for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Monetary affairs have always been subject to government intervention of one kind or another, but there is no reason money could not be produced and regulated in a free marketplace.

The demand for goods is not constrained by the amount of money, but by the production of goods and services available to trade for money.

If the small sample size of monetary history is any guide, the combination of asset market crashes and high goods inflation empowers sound money forces in the political arena. At the moment, neither of those factors are in play.

Contrary to the popular way of thinking, setting in motion a consumption unbacked by production through monetary pumping will only stifle economic growth.

Can policy-induced deviations from the natural rate of interest increase roundaboutness in production? Mark Gertsen studies 28 developed economies using an ARDL model, and finds Austrian boom-bust dynamics.

The Understanding Money Mechanics series by Robert P. Murphy, is a comprehensive overview of the theory, history, and practice of money and banking, with a focus on the United States.