IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/79590.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fractional Reserve Banking: Some Quibbles

Author

Listed:
  • Bagus, Philipp
  • Howden, David

Abstract

We explore several unaddressed issues in George Selgin’s (1988) claim that the best monetary system to maintain monetary equilibrium is a fractional reserve free banking one. The claim that adverse clearing balances would limit credit expansion in a fractional reserve free banking system is more troublesome than previously reckoned. Both lengthened clearing periods and interbank agreements render credit expansion unrestrained. “The theory of free banking” confuses increases in money held with increases in real savings, resulting in exacerbated economic cycles when fiduciary media is issued equally under both scenarios. Most troubling, these economic cycles generated by the free banking system breed an incentive to create a coordinating agent serving as a lender of last resort. The central bank is demonstrated to be a natural, if not unavoidable outgrowth of the fractional reserve free banking system.

Suggested Citation

  • Bagus, Philipp & Howden, David, 2010. "Fractional Reserve Banking: Some Quibbles," MPRA Paper 79590, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:79590
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/79590/1/MPRA_paper_79590.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Selgin, George, 1994. "Free Banking and Monetary Control," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(427), pages 1449-1459, November.
    2. Selgin, George, 2001. "In-Concert Overexpansion and the Precautionary Demand for Bank Reserves," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(2), pages 294-300, May.
    3. Hoppe, Hans-Hermann, 1994. "How Is Fiat Money Possible?--or, the Devolution of Money and Credit," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 7(2), pages 49-74.
    4. 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.
    5. Philipp Bagus, 2008. "Monetary policy as bad medicine: The volatile relationship between business cycles and asset prices," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 21(4), pages 283-300, December.
    6. Hayek, F. A., . "Money, Capital, and Fluctuations," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226321271 edited by McCloughry, R. K., December.
    7. Horwitz, Steven, 1996. "Capital Theory, Inflation and Deflation: The Austrians and Monetary Disequilibrium Theory Compared," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 287-308, October.
    8. Selgin, George & White, Lawrence H, 1996. "In Defense of Fiduciary Media--Or, We Are Not Devo(lutionists), We Are Misesians!," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 9(2), pages 83-107.
    9. Glasner,David, 2005. "Free Banking and Monetary Reform," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521022514, October.
    10. George A. Selgin & Lawrence H. White, 1994. "How Would the Invisible Hand Handle Money?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1718-1749, 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. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2012. "Monetary equilibrium and price stickiness: A rejoinder," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 271-277, September.
    2. 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.
    3. George Selgin, 2012. "Mere quibbles: Bagus and Howden’s critique of the theory of free banking," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 131-148, June.
    4. Van Den Hauwe, Ludwig, 2017. "Monetary Constitutionalism: Some Recent Developments," MPRA Paper 83052, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2012. "Still unanswered quibbles with fractional reserve free banking," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 159-171, June.
    6. Jörg Guido Hülsmann, 2011. "A Stock-taking of the Impact of the Crisis," Chapters, in: David Howden (ed.), Institutions in Crisis, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Bagus, Philipp & Gabriel, Amadeus & Howden, David, 2014. "Causes and Consequences of Inflation," MPRA Paper 79608, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. 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.
    9. repec:idn:jimfjn:v:4:y:2018:i:2j:p:1-32 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Romain Baeriswyl, 2014. "Intertemporal discoordination in the 100 percent reserve banking system," Working Papers 14.06, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    11. Anthony Evans & Steven Horwitz, 2012. "On not doing due diligence: Bagus and Howden on free banking," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 149-157, June.
    12. Degens, Philipp, 2013. "Alternative Geldkonzepte - ein Literaturbericht," MPIfG Discussion Paper 13/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. William Luther & Alexander Salter, 2012. "Monetary equilibrium and price stickiness reconsidered: A reply to Bagus and Howden," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 263-269, September.
    16. APATACHIOAE, Adina, 2014. "Free Banking – Possible Solution To The Recent Crisis?," Journal of Financial and Monetary Economics, Centre of Financial and Monetary Research "Victor Slavescu", vol. 1(1), pages 66-72.

    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. Young, Andrew T. & Dove, John A., 2013. "Policing the chain gang: Panel cointegration analysis of the stability of the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 182-196.
    2. repec:wvu:wpaper:10-20 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2011. "Monetary equilibrium and price stickiness: Causes, consequences and remedies," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 24(4), pages 383-402, December.
    6. Alexander William Salter & Andrew T. Young, 2015. "Would a Free Banking System Target NGDP Growth?," Working Papers 15-08, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    7. Hendrickson, Joshua R. & Salter, Alexander W., 2018. "Going beyond monetary constitutions: The congruence of money and finance," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 22-28.
    8. Salter, Alexander William & Young, Andrew T., 2018. "Would a free banking system stabilize NGDP growth?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 21-25.
    9. George Selgin, 2012. "Mere quibbles: Bagus and Howden’s critique of the theory of free banking," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 131-148, June.
    10. Bagus, Philipp & Howden, David, 2011. "Unanswered Quibbles with Fractional Reserve Free Banking," MPRA Paper 79594, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. 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.
    12. Salter, Alexander William & Young, Andrew T., 2018. "A theory of self-enforcing monetary constitutions with reference to the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 13-22.
    13. 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.
    14. Bagus, Philipp & Gabriel, Amadeus & Howden, David, 2014. "Causes and Consequences of Inflation," MPRA Paper 79608, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. repec:bla:germec:v:4:y:2003:i::p:389-408 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Hortlund, Per, 2005. "Clearing vs. Leakage: Does Note Monopoly Increase Money and Credit Cycles?," Ratio Working Papers 67, The Ratio Institute.
    17. van den Hauwe, Ludwig, 2006. "The Uneasy Case for Fractional-Reserve Free Banking," MPRA Paper 120, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Philipp Bagus, 2011. "The Eurosystem: Costs and Tragedies," Chapters, in: David Howden (ed.), Institutions in Crisis, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. 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.
    20. Hendrickson, Joshua R., 2022. "Commodity money, free banking, and nominal income targeting: Lessons for monetary policy reform," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 462-477.
    21. Lawrence H. White, 2008. "Did Hayek and Robbins Deepen the Great Depression?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(4), pages 751-768, June.
    22. Ogren, Anders, 2006. "Free or central banking? Liquidity and financial deepening in Sweden, 1834-1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 64-93, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    free banking; business cycle; credit expansion; interbank clearing; monetary equilibrium; central banking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General

    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:79590. 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.