The author of this article draws special attention to two particular claims of the free bankers concerning the supposed working characteristics of a fractional-reserve free banking system which may strike the reader as questionable. The first of these relates to the alleged absence of a real-balance effect under free banking. The second relates to the free bankers´ reference to Walras´ Law as providing a rationale for the free banking system´s “offsetting” actions when confronted with changes in the public´ s demand to hold bank liabilities. This rationale is defective since it is based on an erroneous interpretation of Walras´ Law. The author´s conclusion does not imply that it is not at all possible, from a rational viewpoint, to make a plausible case for this variant of free banking, only that the argument should be freed from certain questionable tenets.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
8765.
Find related papers by JEL classification: E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General E00 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - General
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: