Bryan Caplan, David Henderson, and Arnold Kling

Money

A Category Archive (19 entries)

Arnold Kling on Money

Money
David Henderson
In his post today on money, Arnold writes: However, as you know, I prefer to think of money as designed top down, to serve the needs of government. But shouldn't what you "prefer to think" count for literally zero? What... MORE

Money--Designed or Emergent?

Economic History
Arnold Kling
George Selgin writes, Economists generally take for granted, if only tacitly, a teleological view of money's historical development, according to which it first takes the "primitive" form of mundane commodities such as cowrie shells and cacao seeds, and then advances... MORE

More Scott Sumner

Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
Here. after July 2008 there were many other indicators that money was far too tight. About this time the dollar began rising sharply against the euro; and commodity prices began a sharp decline. Real interest rates rose from less than... MORE

M as a weighted average

Money
Arnold Kling
How does monetary policy work? Think of it this way: Fiscal policy adds or subtracts government liabilities. Monetary policy swaps government liabilities.... MORE

Money as a Store of Value

Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
A commenter asks how I reconcile my assertion that money is a store of vaue with my view that macroeconomics should not emphasize the role of money as a store of value. It is only the second view--that money is... MORE

Monetary Theory, Once Again

Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
Josh Hendrickson and a reader raise interesting questions.... MORE

Whose Macro is Bizarre?

Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
Thanks to Mark Thoma for keeping the debate going. In a defense of what Paul Krugman would call Dark Age Macroeconomics, David Beckworth unleashes that most medieval of weapons, the dreaded Vector Autoregression. More on that below the fold. Also... MORE

Responses to Two Critics

Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
I have been making the following claims about macro.... MORE

Read the whole thing. He likes the Recalculation story, which he points out he articulated last December. But he doesn't really buy my bizarre monetary theory. He writes, "I see the Fed as controlling nominal gdp but not always real... MORE

Bizarre Monetary Theory, Once Again

Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
Bill Woolsey writes, it is not difficult to see that a large shift in the composition of demand would result in larger shifts in resource utilization, higher structural unemployment, and slower growth in the productive capacity of the economy. For... MORE

My Bizarre Monetary Theory, Continued

Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
Before I respond to Bryan's comments, let me first recommend the two Scott Sumner papers that he mentions. This paper develops a theory that cultural values drive economic policy, which in turn drives economic outcomes. It is an interesting complement... MORE

I Deny (the significance of) MV = PY

Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel writes, Orthodox monetarists attributed such shocks to declines in the rate of monetary growth, whereas traditional Keynesians blamed declining autonomous expenditures. Both of these sources are captured in the well known equation of exchange: MV = Py,... MORE

Various Links

Monetary Policy
Arnold Kling
I've been away, mostly in Prague (where the big economic question is why so many older buildings have so many fancy details. My answer is that there must have been a very unequal distribution of wealth, so that rich folks... MORE

George Selgin on Free Banking

Money
Arnold Kling
He says in an interview, Free banks compete, as it were, on an even playing field in issuing paper IOUs, which are basically what banknotes are. They have to redeem those IOUs on a regular basis: The competition among different... MORE

The Dollar as Anchor

Monetary Policy
David Henderson
Lots of people lately have been talking about how lousy the dollar is as a store of value. I'll repeat the offer I made in a recent book review in Regulation, in response to an economist's claim that government had... MORE

This lecture looks at private monetary instruments and their relationship to government monetary instruments.... MORE

The Origins of Money

Economic History
Arnold Kling
In contrast to my militaristic account, we have Nick Szabo: Local but extremely valuable trade was, this essay argues, made possible among many cultures by the advent of collectibles, by the time of the Upper Paleolithic. Collectibles substituted for otherwise... MORE

George Selgin on Free Banking

Finance: stocks, options, etc.
Arnold Kling
He talks with Russ Roberts, who asks skeptical questions. Selgin thinks that one can have sound unregulated, uninsured banking without reserve requirements of 100 percent. He thinks that bank owners need to have significant capital at risk. Once upon a... MORE

Walter Block, arguing against Bryan, says that fractional reserve banking is fraudulent. There is some chance that when you make your deposit you will not get your money back, and instead someone else will have taken title to it. Therefore,... MORE

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