Author: George Selgin / Journal: The Cato Journal

Author:: George Selgin
Publication Date:: 07-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: More than a half century ago, in October 1961, Milton Friedman’s “Real and Pseudo Gold Standards” appeared in the Journal of Law and Economics. In that article, Friedman argued that versions of the gold standard erected after 1914, if not some earlier ones, were “pseudo” gold standards, differing from “real” ones in dispensing with actual gold coins and allowing monetary authorities to sterilize international gold movements, instead of letting those movements automatically regulate national money stocks. Such pseudo gold standards, Friedman argued, amounted to particularly dangerous instances of government price-fixing, and as such ought to be anathema to believers in free markets.

Author:: George Selgin
Publication Date:: 07-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: For a private-sector firm, success can mean only one thing: that the firm has turned a profit. No such firm can hope to succeed, or even to survive, merely by declaring that it has been profitable. A government agency, on the other hand, can succeed in either of two ways. It can actually accomplish its mission. Or it can simply declare that it has done so, and get the public to believe it.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States

Author:: George Selgin
Publication Date:: 01-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: When the merits of a European Monetary Union were first being debated, many skeptics fell into one of two camps. The first camp consisted of “Keynesians” (for example, Eichengreen and Bayoumi 1997, Salvatore 1997) who, referring to the theory of optimal currency areas, doubted that Europe constituted such an area, and believed that the proposed monetary union would eventually fall victim to country-specific (“idiosyncratic”) shocks. Unemployment and other burdens stemming from such shocks would, these critics argued, eventually force the monetary authority to either abandon its commitment to price-level stability in order to offer relief to adversely affected members, or cause the members to abandon the union so as to be able to realign their exchange rates.
Political Geography:: Europe

Author:: George Selgin
Publication Date:: 06-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: In Lombard Street, Walter Bagehot (1873) offered his famous advice for reforming the Bank of England's lending policy. The financial crisis of 1866, and other factors, had convinced Bagehot that instead of curtailing credit to conserve the Bank's own liquidity in the face of an “internal drain” of specie, and thereby confronting the English economy as a whole with a liquidity shortage, the Bank ought to “lend freely at high rates on good collateral.” Bagehot's now-famous advice has come to be known as the “classical” prescription for last-resort lending.
Political Geography:: England

Author:: George Selgin
Publication Date:: 03-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: A longstanding tradition in economics, dating back at least to Adam Smith, looks askance at statutory monopolies, condemning almost all of them as unnecessary barriers to economic progress. Thanks largely to this tradition most of the monopolies present in Smith's day are no longer tolerated. The few exceptions are found mainly in less developed countries, where they remain a cause of impoverishment. Needless to say, economists have also generally opposed the monopolization by fiat of undertakings that were already at least somewhat competitive in Smith's day.

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