Indirect Convertibility and Quasi-futures Contracts: Two Non-operational Schemes for Automatic Stabilisation of the Price Level

This paper examines two proposals for automatic stabilization of the price level based on indirect convertibility and something called a 'quasi futures contract'. These two schemes represent attempts to render operational ideas implicit in the Black (1970) Fama (1980) and Hall (1982) vision of the monetary system. Criticisms of the two schemes have been rejected by their exponents. The paper clarifies the analytical issues at stake in this debate and concludes that both schemes do suffer from fundamental flaws which would render them nonoperational. Hence, neither scheme offers an operational basis for a laissez faire banking system or provides a workable alternative to current methods of stabilising the price level.