Volume 5, No. 4 (Winter 2002) The authors argue that a currency board is a creation of the state, aiming at granting particular political favors,and purposefully designed to secure the reappearance of an independent domestic money producer. A currency board establishes a foreign fiat money standard enforced by legal tender laws for its bank
Volume 6, No. 4 (Winter 2003) This three-volume collection, edited by William Rees-Mogg and published in 2002 by Pickering and Chatto presents, in more than 949 pages, essays and excerpts from books written by 19 of the most remarkable monetary theorists from the sixteenth century to the present. Sir Rees-Mogg’s selection begins with
Volume 9, No. 1 (Spring 2006) The book Deflation: Current and Historical Perspectives , dedicated to the history and economics of the phenomenon of falling prices, is composed of 11 contributions by 20 economists from two major conferences on this scarcely investigated topic that were held in April 2000 at Claremont McKenna College and in
The Nobel Prize in Economics is considered the ultimate consecration that an economist could receive from his fellow peers. Hence, to cast a critical opinion on the Prize, rather than on the views of a particular laureate, implies a critical attitude toward the entire economics profession as it has developed at least for the last 40 years.
Volume 16, No. 2 (Summer 2013) This article has a twofold purpose. Its first goal is to pay tribute to Friedrich von Hayek as an outstanding monetary theorist. Its second objective is to further elaborate, on the ground of Hayek’s main findings, the deficiencies of the contemporary monetary order, namely by presenting the phenomenon of monetary
Volume 10, No. 4 (Winter 2007) In contemporary economic theory, and especially in macroeconomics, expectations are being given a central place. There is virtually no economic model that does not examine how, within a dynamic perspective, the explicit account of individuals’ expectations qualifies the conclusions of the static analysis. To a
With the dollar down and gold up, both trends obviously related to growing fear of economic troubles ahead, the question again arises: why shouldn’t the dollar itself be defined as a fixed quantity of gold? It would be if the views of the classical liberal tradition held sway. This tradition stands solidly behind a commodity money standard, like
As I pointed out in my last column , the classical economists were not only advocates of the laissez-faire, laissez-passer credo; they were also opponents of a fiat paper money, viewing it as a corruption of the idea and integrity of money itself. However, their views on monetary matters were far from perfect. They made subtle errors that
For good economists, the link between the operation of a fractional-reserve banking system and the recurrence of boom-bust cycles is of little doubt. One of the paramount figures who has contributed to the intellectual elaboration of this relationship and to its transmission to young economists, among which the present writer has had the pleasure
Bitcoins have been much in the news lately. Against the background of renewed concerns about the integrity of the euro zone and the imposition of capital controls in Cyprus, the price of a bitcoin has tripled over the last month and reached more than $141 for 1 BTC. Are we witnessing the spontaneous emergence of an alternative virtual medium of
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.