Why does the use of personal protection equipment (PPE) differ across countries? I develop a simple model and then offer several hypotheses. While the primary objective is to explain cross-country differences, the model suggests potential reasons for within-country and time-series variation, as well

The standard economic approach to considering the effects of a policy tends to neglect the prospect of regulatory ambiguity. I describe four sources of regulatory ambiguity and survey the literature considering the effects of ambiguity on entrepreneurial activity. I also explain how...

In The Curse of Cash, Kenneth Rogoff lists reductions in criminal activity and tax evasion among the primary benefits of eliminating cash. We maintain that, to the extent that individuals are interested in purchasing illicit goods and services or evading taxes, eliminating cash will encourage...

The emergence of bitcoin poses an important question for monetary theorists: can bitcoin compete with or even replace existing fiat monies? To answer this question, one must be able to determine what gives intrinsically useless monies their value, what determines the coexistence of alternative...

We provide an initial assessment of the Federal Reserve's policy response to the COVID-19 contraction. We briefly review the historical episode and consider the standard textbook treatment of a pandemic on the macroeconomy. We summarize and then evaluate the Fed's monetary and emergency lending...

What governs central bank decisions? Most considerations focus on motivations. Instead, we consider the extent to which specific behaviors have adaptive value in the context of central banking. From this perspective, poor decisions are not the product of poor motivations. They are, instead, a...

We consider the essential features of an Austrian macroeconomic model and then ask whether these features are unique. We argue that the temporal aspect of the structure of production is not an essential feature. Malinvestments in any dimension (e.g., time, geography, type, etc.) can generate the...

We make a distinction between centralized, decentralized, and distributed payment mechanisms. A centralized payment mechanism processes a transaction using a trusted third party. A decentralized payment mechanism processes a transaction between the parties to the transaction. A distributed...

What does an ideal base money look like? I maintain that it is (1) stable, (2) demand-elastic, (3) global, and (4) incentive-compatible. I conclude that, since most real world monies fall short of the ideal on one margin or another, one must consider the trade offs when ranking the available...

It is common to hear that working-class wages have stagnated; that many prime-age workers today are worse off than their parents were; and that the economy is rigged for all but those at the very top. In a new book titled The American Dream Is Not Dead (But Populism Could Kill It), Michael R....