We contribute to the post-crisis literature on macroeconomic stability by arguing that polycentric banking systems can better achieve stability than monocentric systems. Building on the theories of E. Ostrom, we engage the literature on free banking systems to show that these systems met the...

The problem of financial stability is political and institutional, rather than narrowly economic. To achieve a more resilient financial system, we need to pay attention to the incentives of actors who have the power to act discretionarily, and to the knowledge limitations of such actors in the...

We develop a theory of financial stability based on insights from the literature on polycentric governance and institutional resilience. We contend that top-down regulatory approaches to achieving financial stability will prove ineffective, due to various knowledge and incentive problems. In...

Over the course of three hundred years, the institutional organization of the Christian church evolved from small loosely organized groups meeting in house churches to a form of hierarchical organization known as monepiscopacy. Monepiscopacy denotes a form of ecclesial polity in which a single...

This paper applies Kirzner’s theory of entrepreneurial alertness to central banking. As opposed to entrepreneurs operating within the market, central banks can operate outside the market by defining its structure and regulations. We label as “super-alertness” the particular type of...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the political philosophy of John C. Calhoun from the perspective of Virginia Political Economy. Specifically, this paper argues that Calhoun's theory of the concurrent majority offers a way of operationalizing the "generality norm" of Buchanan and...

This paper presents a case study of the emergence of currency from a barter economy. We use this case study to attempt to shed light on the relative importance of various types of frictions that lead to the emergence of money in search-theoretic models of currency formation. In particular, our...