IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/iecrev/v61y2020i2p821-846.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Renovatio Monetae: When Gesell Taxes Worked

Author

Listed:
  • Roger Svensson
  • Andreas Westermark

Abstract

Gesell taxes on money have recently received attention as a way of alleviating the zero lower bound on interest rates. Less known is that such taxes generated seigniorage in medieval Europe for around two centuries. When a Gesell tax was levied, current coins ceased to be legal and had to be exchanged into new coins for a fee. Using a cash‐in‐advance model, we analyze under what conditions agents exchange coins and the tax generates revenues. A low exchange fee, high punishments for using old coins, and a long time period between re‐mintings induce people to use new coins.

Suggested Citation

  • Roger Svensson & Andreas Westermark, 2020. "Renovatio Monetae: When Gesell Taxes Worked," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(2), pages 821-846, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:61:y:2020:i:2:p:821-846
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12441
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12441
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/iere.12441?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Willem H. Buiter & Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, 2003. "Overcoming the zero bound on nominal interest rates with negative interest on currency: gesell's solution," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(490), pages 723-746, October.
    2. Allen,Martin, 2012. "Mints and Money in Medieval England," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107014947, September.
    3. Roger Svensson, 2016. "Periodic recoinage as a monetary tax: conditions for the rise and fall of the bracteate economy," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 69(4), pages 1108-1131, November.
    4. Sussman, Nathan & Zeira, Joseph, 2003. "Commodity money inflation: theory and evidence from France in 1350-1436," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1769-1793, November.
    5. Svensson, Roger & Westermark, Andreas, 2015. "Renovatio Monetae: Gesell Taxes in Practice," Working Paper Series 1083, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    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. Adam Brzezinski & Nuno Palma & François R. Velde, 2024. "Understanding Money Using Historical Evidence," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 16(1), pages 571-595, August.
    2. Pédussel Wu, Jennifer & Metzger, Martina & Neira, Ignacio Silva & Farroukh, Arafet, 2023. "What determines demand for digital community currencies? OurVillage in Cameroon," IPE Working Papers 209/2023, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).

    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. Svensson, Roger & Westermark, Andreas, 2015. "Renovatio Monetae: Gesell Taxes in Practice," Working Paper Series 1083, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    2. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2006. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Commitment with a Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(7), pages 1877-1905, October.
    3. Buiter, Willem H., 2009. "Negative nominal interest rates: Three ways to overcome the zero lower bound," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 213-238, December.
    4. Cordelius Ilgmann & Martin Menner, 2011. "Negative nominal interest rates: history and current proposals," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 383-405, December.
    5. Willem Buiter, 2004. "A Small Corner of Intertemporal Public Finance - New Developments in Monetary Economics: 2 Ghosts, 2 Eccentricities, A Fallacy, A Mirage and A Mythos," NBER Working Papers 10524, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Wenzlaff, Ferdinand & Kimmich, Christian & Richters, Oliver, 2014. "Theoretische Zugänge eines Wachstumszwangs in der Geldwirtschaft," ZÖSS-Discussion Papers 45, University of Hamburg, Centre for Economic and Sociological Studies (CESS/ZÖSS).
    7. Ulrich van Suntum, "undated". "Economic Confidence, Negative Interest Rates, and Liquidity: Towards Keynesianism 2.0," Working Papers 200108, Institute of Spatial and Housing Economics, Munster Universitary.
    8. Meixing DAI, 2009. "On the role of money growth targeting under inflation targeting regime," Working Papers of BETA 2009-11, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    9. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Dedola, Luca & Jarociński, Marek & Maćkowiak, Bartosz & Schmidt, Sebastian, 2019. "Macroeconomic stabilization, monetary-fiscal interactions, and Europe's monetary union," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 22-33.
    10. Buiter, Willem H., 2006. "The elusive welfare economics of price stability as a monetary policy objective: why New Keynesian central bankers should validate core inflation," Working Paper Series 609, European Central Bank.
    11. Buiter, Willem, 2007. "Is Numérairology the Future of Monetary Economics? Unbundling Numéraire and Medium of Exchange Through a Virtual Currency and," CEPR Discussion Papers 6099, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Adam Brzezinski & Nuno Palma & François R. Velde, 2024. "Understanding Money Using Historical Evidence," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 16(1), pages 571-595, August.
    13. Arteta,Carlos & Kose,Ayhan & Stocker,Marc & Taskin,Temel, 2016. "Negative interest rate policies : sources and implications," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7791, The World Bank.
    14. van Suntum, Ulrich, 2009. "Economic confidence, negative interest rates, and liquidity: Towards Keynesianism 2.0," CAWM Discussion Papers 24, University of Münster, Münster Center for Economic Policy (MEP).
    15. Willem H. Buiter, 2003. "Deflation: Prevention and Cure," NBER Working Papers 9623, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Wenzlaff, Ferdinand & Kimmich, Christian & Koudela, Thomas & Richters, Oliver & Freydorf, Christoph & Schuster, Ludwig, 2012. "Wachstumszwang in der Geldwirtschaft? Theoretische Erwägungen," EconStor Research Reports 237053, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    17. Billi, Roberto M., 2018. "Price level targeting and risk management," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 163-173.
    18. Buiter, Willem H., 2007. "Seigniorage," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 1, pages 1-49.
    19. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2007-007 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Anwar Khayat, 2015. "Negative Policy Rates, Banking Flows and Exchange Rates," AMSE Working Papers 1538, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France, revised Sep 2015.
    21. Jagjit S. Chadha, 2023. "Mr Putin and the Chronicle of a Normalisation Foretold," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 551, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

    More about this item

    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:wly:iecrev:v:61:y:2020:i:2:p:821-846. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.