George Selgin
Visiting Scholar – July 2019
George Selgin is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Georgia. He was the featured speaker at AIER’s 2018 Sound Money Project Annual Meeting. He was a Visiting Scholar for AIER in Summer 2019
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Bank and Crypto Runs: F(ac)TX vs Fiction
“Despite the historical record, ever since Diamond and Dybvig published their article, many if not most economists have tended to view every financial firm collapse as a ‘Diamond Dybvig Moment.'” ~ George Selgin
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Paul Krugman and the “Ersatz” Theory of Private Currencies
“Private paper currencies, including notes issued by ordinary commercial banks without the benefit of official guarantees, have never been driven to extinction by the mere presence of official alternatives.” ~ George Selgin
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Making Money Myths
“NQA banknote systems have existed in the past. It follows that private NQA paper currency is perfectly possible. It might still be true, of course, that private NQA digital currency isn’t possible. But if I were you, I wouldn’t take Gary Gorton’s word for it.” ~ George Selgin
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Missed it by That Much: Where the Fed’s Digital Currency Proposal Goes Wrong
“Whereas the sCBDC plan allows for numerous, entirely distinct retail digital currencies, the Fed’s iCBDC plan provides for a single digital currency only, albeit one offered at and administered by numerous private-sector firms.” ~ George Selgin
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A Three-Pronged Blunder, or, What Money Is, and What It Isn’t
“Can we please junk the stupid three-function definition of money? So what if textbook writers keep repeating it? It’s incoherent. It’s based on some earlier economists’ sloppy reading of Jevons’s classic treatment.” ~ George Selgin
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In Defense of Bank Deposits: An Open Letter to Professor Omarova
“I can’t help thinking that someone placed in charge of a quarter of the nation’s banks ought to recognize the valuable services they perform, and recognize them well enough to be willing to oppose any plan that would prevent them from continuing to perform those services.” ~ George Selgin
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When the Fed Tried to Save Main Street
Any day now, the Federal Reserve will start making loans to small and medium-sized businesses, breaking new ground with its Section 13(3) lending authority. Yet this won’t be the first time the Fed set its sights on Main Street businesses.
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Fedophilia: The Intellectual Disease and Cure
When most monetary economists talk about the virtues of this or that central bank, they’re mostly talking through their hats, because they haven’t a clue concerning what other institutions might be present, and what they might be up to if the central bank wasn’t there.
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•
Bank and Crypto Runs: F(ac)TX vs Fiction
“Despite the historical record, ever since Diamond and Dybvig published their article, many if not most economists have tended to view every financial firm collapse as a ‘Diamond Dybvig Moment.'” ~ George Selgin
-
•
Paul Krugman and the “Ersatz” Theory of Private Currencies
“Private paper currencies, including notes issued by ordinary commercial banks without the benefit of official guarantees, have never been driven to extinction by the mere presence of official alternatives.” ~ George Selgin
-
•
Making Money Myths
“NQA banknote systems have existed in the past. It follows that private NQA paper currency is perfectly possible. It might still be true, of course, that private NQA digital currency isn’t possible. But if I were you, I wouldn’t take Gary Gorton’s word for it.” ~ George Selgin
-
•
Missed it by That Much: Where the Fed’s Digital Currency Proposal Goes Wrong
“Whereas the sCBDC plan allows for numerous, entirely distinct retail digital currencies, the Fed’s iCBDC plan provides for a single digital currency only, albeit one offered at and administered by numerous private-sector firms.” ~ George Selgin
-
•
A Three-Pronged Blunder, or, What Money Is, and What It Isn’t
“Can we please junk the stupid three-function definition of money? So what if textbook writers keep repeating it? It’s incoherent. It’s based on some earlier economists’ sloppy reading of Jevons’s classic treatment.” ~ George Selgin
-
•
In Defense of Bank Deposits: An Open Letter to Professor Omarova
“I can’t help thinking that someone placed in charge of a quarter of the nation’s banks ought to recognize the valuable services they perform, and recognize them well enough to be willing to oppose any plan that would prevent them from continuing to perform those services.” ~ George Selgin
-
•
When the Fed Tried to Save Main Street
Any day now, the Federal Reserve will start making loans to small and medium-sized businesses, breaking new ground with its Section 13(3) lending authority. Yet this won’t be the first time the Fed set its sights on Main Street businesses.
-
•
Fedophilia: The Intellectual Disease and Cure
When most monetary economists talk about the virtues of this or that central bank, they’re mostly talking through their hats, because they haven’t a clue concerning what other institutions might be present, and what they might be up to if the central bank wasn’t there.