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On the controversy over the origins of the Chicago Plan for 100 percent reserves

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  • George S. Tavlas

    (Bank of Greece)

Abstract

The idea of 100 percent reserve requirements against demand deposits received a renewed impetus following the 2007-08 financial crisis. In 1933, a group of University of Chicago economists, led by Frank Knight and Henry Simons, circulated two memoranda that called for 100 percent reserve requirements. The idea became known as the Chicago Plan of Banking Reform. That same idea had been proposed in 1926 by Frederick Soddy, a Nobel Laureate in chemistry, in his book, Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt. Soddy claimed precedence, a claim that caught on. I provide evidence showing that Knight, and probably Simons, conceived the idea of 100 percent reserves prior to the publication of Soddy’s 1926 book. By 1934, however, Simons raised concerns that 100 percent reserves would not be sufficient in a world where financial markets could innovate around legal restrictions on banks.

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  • George S. Tavlas, 2020. "On the controversy over the origins of the Chicago Plan for 100 percent reserves," Working Papers 279, Bank of Greece.
    • Handle: RePEc:bog:wpaper:279
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Samuel Demeulemeester, 2018. "The 100% money proposal and its implications for banking: the Currie–Fisher approach versus the Chicago Plan approach," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 357-387, March.
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    9. Dellas, Harris & Tavlas, George, 2019. "The Dog that Didn’t Bark: The Curious Case of Lloyd Mints, Milton Friedman and the Emergence of Monetarism," CEPR Discussion Papers 13858, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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    Cited by:

    1. Tavlas, George S., 2022. "“The Initiated”: Aaron Director And The Chicago Monetary Tradition," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 1-23, March.
    2. Chikako Nakayama, 2021. "Longing for Haute Finance in the 21st Century? A Neo-Polanyian Approach to the Theory of Money in the Digital Age," Accounting and Finance Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 10(4), pages 1-1, November.
    3. Samuel Demeulemeester, 2022. "Divorcing money creation from bank loans: revisiting the “100% money” proposal of the 1930s [Dissocier la création monétaire des prêts bancaires : retour sur la proposition "100% monnaie"," Post-Print hal-03938669, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    100 percent reserves; Chicago Plan; Frank Knight; Henry Simons; Frederick Soddy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System

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