IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/84832.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Hubris of Hybrids

Author

Listed:
  • Bagus, Philipp
  • Howden, David
  • Gabriel, Amadeus

Abstract

In the pages of this journal, a fruitful debate has evolved on the ethical legitimacy of fractional-reserve banking. In this article we respond to the new arguments raised by Evans (forthcoming) as we clarify our (Bagus, Howden and Gabriel 2015) position on the unethical and illegitimate nature of fractional-reserve banking. Fractional-reserve banking is not a recent financial innovation (unlike, e.g., money market mutual funds) but represents a long-standing legal aberration. The co-mingling of two mutually exclusive financial contracts, deposit and loan, confounds the contracting parties´ purposes, intents, rights and obligations. As a result it creates unsolvable legal difficulties and ethical dilemmas. While these problems are most evident in the case of a bank run, they also arise when trying to answer the simple question of “who owns a deposit?”

Suggested Citation

  • Bagus, Philipp & Howden, David & Gabriel, Amadeus, 2017. "The Hubris of Hybrids," MPRA Paper 84832, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:84832
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/84832/1/MPRA_paper_84832.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philipp Bagus, 2011. "The Eurosystem: Costs and Tragedies," Chapters, in: David Howden (ed.), Institutions in Crisis, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Williams, Jeffrey C, 1984. "Fractional Reserve Banking in Grain," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 16(4), pages 488-496, November.
    3. Nicolás Cachanosky, 2011. "A Comment on Barnett and Block on Time Deposit and Bagus and Howden on Loan Maturity Mismatching," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 219-221, December.
    4. Philipp Bagus & David Howden & Walter Block, 2013. "Deposits, Loans, and Banking: Clarifying the Debate," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(3), pages 627-644, July.
    5. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2012. "The Continuing Continuum Problem of Deposits and Loans," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 106(3), pages 295-300, March.
    6. Philipp Bagus & Amadeus Gabriel & David Howden, 2016. "Reassessing the Ethicality of Some Common Financial Practices," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 471-480, July.
    7. David Howden (ed.), 2011. "Institutions in Crisis," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14370.
    8. Philipp Bagus & David Howden & Amadeus Gabriel, 2015. "Oil and Water Do Not Mix, or: Aliud Est Credere, Aliud Deponere," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 197-206, April.
    9. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2016. "The economic and legal significance of “full” deposit availability," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 243-254, February.
    10. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2009. "The Legitimacy of Loan Maturity Mismatching: A Risky, but not Fraudulent, Undertaking," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 90(3), pages 399-406, December.
    11. Bagus, Philipp & Howden, David, 2013. "Some Ethical Dilemmas with Modern Banking," MPRA Paper 79599, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jesús Huerta de Soto & Antonio Sánchez-Bayón & Philipp Bagus, 2021. "Principles of Monetary & Financial Sustainability and Wellbeing in a Post-COVID-19 World: The Crisis and Its Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-11, April.
    2. Van Den Hauwe, Ludwig, 2017. "Monetary Constitutionalism: Some Recent Developments," MPRA Paper 83052, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Philipp Bagus & Amadeus Gabriel & David Howden, 2018. "On the Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Legitimate Banking Contracts," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 669-678, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Philipp Bagus & David Howden & Jesús Huerta de Soto Ballester, 2018. "Entrepreneurial Error Does Not Equal Market Failure," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 433-441, May.
    2. David Howden & Amadeus Gabriel, 2015. "The Interest Rate Brake on Maturity Transformation," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(4), pages 1100-1111, October.
    3. Philipp Bagus & David Howden & Amadeus Gabriel, 2015. "Oil and Water Do Not Mix, or: Aliud Est Credere, Aliud Deponere," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 197-206, April.
    4. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2023. "Consumer rights and banking contracts," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(1), pages 105-114, March.
    5. Jesús Huerta de Soto & Antonio Sánchez-Bayón & Philipp Bagus, 2021. "Principles of Monetary & Financial Sustainability and Wellbeing in a Post-COVID-19 World: The Crisis and Its Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-11, April.
    6. Laura Davidson, 2015. "Ethical Differences Between Loan Maturity Mismatching and Fractional Reserve Banking: A Natural Law Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 9-18, September.
    7. Philipp Bagus & Amadeus Gabriel & David Howden, 2018. "On the Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Legitimate Banking Contracts," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 669-678, February.
    8. Malavika Nair, 2015. "Fractional Reserve Banking, Client Collaboration, and Fraud," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 85-92, August.
    9. Anthony Evans, 2015. "What is the Latin for ‘Mayonnaise’? A Response to Bagus, Howden and Gabriel," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 619-623, October.
    10. Anthony Evans, 2014. "In Defence of ‘Demand’ Deposits: Contractual Solutions to the Barnett and Block, and Bagus and Howden Debate," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 351-364, October.
    11. Van Den Hauwe, Ludwig, 2017. "Monetary Constitutionalism: Some Recent Developments," MPRA Paper 83052, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Bagus, Philipp & Gabriel, Amadeus & Howden, David, 2014. "Causes and Consequences of Inflation," MPRA Paper 79608, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Philipp Bagus & Amadeus Gabriel & David Howden, 2016. "Reassessing the Ethicality of Some Common Financial Practices," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 471-480, July.
    14. Walter E. Block & William Barnett, 2017. "Maturity Mismatching and “Market Failure”," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 142(2), pages 313-323, May.
    15. Bagus, Philipp & Howden, David, 2016. "Central Bank Balance Sheet Analysis," MPRA Paper 79801, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2016. "The economic and legal significance of “full” deposit availability," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 243-254, February.
    17. Philipp Bagus, 2011. "The Eurosystem: Costs and Tragedies," Chapters, in: David Howden (ed.), Institutions in Crisis, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2012. "The Continuing Continuum Problem of Deposits and Loans," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 106(3), pages 295-300, March.
    19. repec:idn:jimfjn:v:4:y:2018:i:2j:p:1-32 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Howden, David, 2013. "The Quantity Theory of Money," MPRA Paper 79601, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Anthony J. Evans & Vlad Tarko, 2014. "Contemporary Work in Austrian Economics," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 29(Fall 2014), pages 135-157.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    100 % reserve requirement; Banking; Demand deposits; Fractional-reserve banking; Fraud;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:84832. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.