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The merits and feasibility of returning to a commodity standard

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  • White, Lawrence H.

Abstract

Although few academic economists today endorse a gold standard, historical data show that actual gold standards have outperformed actual fiat standards in at least five respects. Gold standards have exhibited: (1) lower mean inflation rate, hence lower deadweight cost of economizing on money balances; (2) lower price level uncertainty, hence deeper long-term bond markets; (3) greater international trade and capital flows, due to network benefits of a common currency area; (4) lower resource costs of gold mining for monetary purposes with a lower real price of gold, due to the absence of private demand to hold gold as an inflation hedge; and (5) greater fiscal discipline. Returning to a gold standard would be immediately feasible for the US, the Eurozone, and Switzerland, where official gold stocks are large enough at the current price of gold to provide historically reasonable reserve ratios behind broader monetary aggregates. Other major nations (Japan, UK, China) would have to purchase gold.

Suggested Citation

  • White, Lawrence H., 2015. "The merits and feasibility of returning to a commodity standard," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 59-64.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finsta:v:17:y:2015:i:c:p:59-64
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfs.2015.03.003
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    Cited by:

    1. Harwick, Cameron & Caton, James, 2022. "What’s holding back blockchain finance? On the possibility of decentralized autonomous finance," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 420-429.
    2. de la Horra, Luis P. & de la Fuente, Gabriel & Perote, Javier, 2019. "The drivers of Bitcoin demand: A short and long-run analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 21-34.
    3. Thomas L. Hogan, Daniel J. Smith, Robin Aguiar-Hicks, 2018. "Central Banking without Romance," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 15(2), pages 293-314, December.
    4. Cutsinger, Bryan P., 2020. "On the feasibility of returning to the gold standard," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 88-97.
    5. Peter J. Boettke & Alexander W. Salter & Daniel J. Smith, 2018. "Money as meta-rule: Buchanan’s constitutional economics as a foundation for monetary stability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 529-555, September.
    6. Lawrence H. White, 2015. "The Federal Reserve System's Overreach into Credit Allocation," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 30(Winter 20), pages 17-29.
    7. Peter J. Boettke & Daniel J. Smith, 2016. "Evolving views on monetary policy in the thought of Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 29(4), pages 351-370, December.
    8. Shanaev, Savva & Sharma, Satish & Ghimire, Binam & Shuraeva, Arina, 2020. "Taming the blockchain beast? Regulatory implications for the cryptocurrency Market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).

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