IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bog/wpaper/279.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • 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.

Suggested Citation

  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bankofgreece.gr/Publications/Paper2020279.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barber,William J., 2006. "Designs within Disorder," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521034319.
    2. Laidler,David, 1999. "Fabricating the Keynesian Revolution," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521641739.
    3. Bordo, Michael D. & Rockoff, Hugh, 2013. "The Influence Of Irving Fisher On Milton Friedman’S Monetary Economics," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 153-177, June.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Thomas M. Humphrey, 1987. "The theory of multiple expansion of deposits: what it is and whence it came," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 73(Mar), pages 3-11.
    7. Henry C. Simons, 1936. "Rules versus Authorities in Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 1-1.
    8. Nelson, Edward, 2013. "Friedman's monetary economics in practice," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 59-83.
    9. Allen, William R, 1993. "Irving Fisher and the 100 Percent Reserve Proposal," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(2), pages 703-717, October.
    10. James R. Lothian & George S. Tavlas, 2018. "How Friedman and Schwartz Became Monetarists," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(4), pages 757-787, June.
    11. Milton Friedman & Anna J. Schwartz, 1963. "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie63-1.
    12. Nelson, Edward, 2020. "Milton Friedman and Economic Debate in the United States, 1932–1972, Volume 1," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226683775, December.
    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. 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.

    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. George S. Tavlas, 2024. "On the Controversy over the Origins of the Chicago Plan for 100% Reserves: Sorry, Frederick Soddy, it was Knight and (Most Probably) Simons!," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(6), pages 1573-1594, September.
    2. Tavlas, George S., 2021. "A Reconsideration Of The Doctrinal Foundations Of Monetary Policy Rules: Fisher Versus Chicago," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(1), pages 55-82, March.
    3. Sylvie Rivot, 2020. "Information and Expectations in Policy-Making: Friedman's Changing Approaches to Macroeconomic Dynamics," GREDEG Working Papers 2020-39, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    4. Rockoff, Hugh, 2022. "Milton Friedman on bailouts," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    5. Samuel Demeulemeester, 2022. "What analytical framework for Sovereign Money? Some insight from the 100% Money literature, and a comment on criticisms," Working Papers hal-03751756, HAL.
    6. George S. Tavlas, 2015. "In Old Chicago: Simons, Friedman, and the Development of Monetary‐Policy Rules," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(1), pages 99-121, February.
    7. Jan Toporowski, 2013. "The Elgar Companion to Hyman Minsky," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(1), pages 175-177, January.
    8. Samuel Demeulemeester, 2020. "Would a State Monopoly Over Money Creation Allow for a Reduction of National Debt? A Study of the “Seigniorage Argument” in Light of the “100% Money” Debates," Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, in: Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on Public Finance in the History of Economic Thought, volume 38, pages 123-144, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    9. Samuel Demeulemeester, 2021. "The 100% money proposal of the 1930s: an avatar of the Currency School’s reform ideas?," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 577-598, July.
    10. James R. Lothian & George S. Tavlas, 2018. "How Friedman and Schwartz Became Monetarists," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(4), pages 757-787, June.
    11. Sylvie Rivot, 2015. "Rule-based frameworks in historical perspective: Keynes' and Friedman's monetary policies versus contemporary policy-rules," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 601-633, August.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Laidler, David, 2017. "Economic ideas, the monetary order and the uneasy case for policy rules," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 54(PA), pages 12-23.
    16. George S. Tavlas, 2015. "In Old Chicago: Simons, Friedman, and the Development of Monetary‐Policy Rules," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(1), pages 99-121, February.
    17. Robert W. Dimand, 2012. "The Roots of the Present are in the Past: The Relation of Postwar Developments in Macroeconomics to Interwar Business Cycle and Monetary Theory," Chapters, in: Thomas Cate (ed.), Keynes’s General Theory, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Scott Sumner, 2022. "Whither monetarism?," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 275-287, June.
    19. Samuel Demeulemeester, 2024. "The case for 100% money: Ten reasons for separating money issuance from banking," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 57-70, February.
    20. Tatom, John A., 2014. "U.S. monetary policy in disarray," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 47-58.

    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

    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:bog:wpaper:279. 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: Anastasios Rizos (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boggvgr.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.