The case of the Somali shilling defies the historical view that sovereign powers (i.e., legal tender status, public receivability) are necessary to explain the acceptance of fiat money at a positive value. Following the Somali state’s collapse in 1991, irredeemable paper shillings have...

At present, bitcoin is held mostly as a speculative vehicle, little used to pay for goods and services. Its value has been unstable, which impedes bitcoin’s wider use as a payment medium. We explain why the value of bitcoin has been so unstable. Then, we discuss entrepreneurial efforts that...

Gary Becker's contribution to labor economics can be highlighted by contrast to his predecessors and critics. Human capital analysis was not much developed before Becker, although the concept was recognized by such prominent figures as Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, and John Bates Clark....

F. A. Hayek's macroeconomic theory and policy ideas have gained renewed attention since the recent boom-and-bust cycle followed the basic Hayekian narrative of an unsustainable cheap- money boom ending with a crash. Only to a very limited extent, however, do we find Hayek's ideas on the agenda...

I describe and defend the dollarization of Ecuador in 1999-2000 as a bottom-up phenomenon, an expression of consumer sovereignty by money-users, to which the government finally conceded. From that perspective I rebut common top-down (social planner) arguments against dollarization, and criticize...

Although it is sometimes considered one of a kind, or a first-mover monopolist in the market for cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is surrounded by effective competitors. Between March 2013 and December 2014, while the market capitalization of Bitcoin grew four-fold, the market cap of other...

Although few academic economists today endorse a gold standard, historical data show that actual gold standards have outperformed actual fiat standards in at least five respects: (1) lower mean inflation rate, hence lower deadweight cost of economizing on money balances; (2) lower price level...

An uncommon approach to US monetary reform, exemplified by F. A. Hayek's 1976 monograph Choice in Currency, is to end legal barriers to alternative monies, whether as units of account or as media of exchange. Alternative monetary standards might then arise in the marketplace to operate in...

The business cycle theory of Friedrich A. Hayek offers an explanation for the onset of the Great Depression that is more complete than those of his contemporaries, including Gustav Cassel. Hayek sought to explain why the boom of the 1920s ended in the bust of 1929. In the 1930s, Hayek's theory...

Some economists have argued theoretically that the private minting of circulating precious metal coins would be inefficient: Due to information asymmetry, money-users would be chronically victimized by low-quality or underweight coins. An examination of experience with private mints during gold...