The free-banking history of Switzerland is subdivided into periods with unfettered competition (1826–1881), and strict banknote regulation (1881–1907). This paper suggests that the Federal Banknote Act of 1881 was introduced to remedy the fragmentation of the unfettered-competition period,...

In the early 1870s, the global monetary system transitioned from bimetallism-a regime in which gold and silver currencies were tied at quasi-fixed exhange ratios-to the gold standard that was characterized by the use of (only) gold as the main currency metal by the largest and most advanced...

For one variable-supply currency in isolation, one player's Cobb-Douglas utility depends on the current supply divided by the initial supply, multiplied by the inverse of the accumulative inflation/deflation. With equal weight assigned to both factors, money printing outweighs inflation, and...