The article analyzes how conventionalists, pioneers and criminals choose between a national currency (e.g. a central bank digital currency) and a global currency (e.g. a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin) that both have specific characteristics in an economy. Conventionalists favor what is...

Frequently noted inadequately explored connections between currency internationalization and expected change in the polarity of the international monetary system in the international relations literature are commanding the renewed attention and vigorous debate for more international monetary...

From Aristotle to Ricardo and Menger, economists have emphasised the function of money as a medium of exchange together with the intrinsic qualities that increase its saleability and credibility as a most liquid store of value. But the social institution of money co-evolves with technology. It...

The scholarly debate on currency internationalization focuses on country characteristics and policies as the main determinants in currency competition. However, this literature has neglected the fact that, given the intertwined nature of the international monetary system, other countries'...

The properties of money commonly referenced in the economics literature were originally identified by Jevons (1876) and Menger (1892) in the late 1800s and were intended to describe physical currencies, such as commodity money, metallic coins, and paper bills. In the digital era, many...

Cryptocurrencies come with benefits, such as anonymity of payments and positive network effects of user adoption, and transaction risks including unconfirmed transactions, hacks, and frauds. They compete with central-bank-regulated money but consumers may prefer one currency over the other. In...

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,...

This paper presents a tractable model of a global economy in which countries can use a broad range of policy instruments---the nominal interest rate, taxes on imports and exports, taxes on capital flows or foreign exchange interventions. Low demand may lead to unemployment because of downward...

The role of money in society has been a controversial topic in economic theory over many years. Particular attention has been devoted to the analysis whether there should be competition in the supply of money, or whether this is best left to a governmental agency. This paper reviews the...

The last decade has seen the burgeoning of several hundred local community currency institutions in cities across the world. Although residents of these communities claim that local currency promotes local development, how if at all it does so has hitherto been unexplored. This paper argues that...