Unlike most hyperinflations, during Zimbabwe's recent hyperinflation, as in Revolutionary France, the currency ended before the regime. The empirical results here suggest that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe operated on the correct side of the inflation tax Laffer curve before abandoning the...

A transactions model of the demand for multiple media of exchange is developed. Some results are expected, and others are both new and surprising. There are both extensive and intensive margins to currency substitution, and inflation may affect the two margins differently, leading to subtle...

A transactions model of the demand for multiple media of exchange is developed and applied to the study of currency substitution. The analysis provides a theoretical foundation for results reported in the empirical literature. Some results are expected, such as the dependence of currency...

Selgin's Theorem -- that a free banking system operating on a fixed supply of commodity reserves acts to stabilize total nominal spending per year -- provides an analytical bridge between this alternative regime and conventional monetary theory. For a system of competing banks subject to...

This paper is written by Hongyi Chen (Hong Kong Institute for Monetary and Financial Research) and Pierre Siklos (Wilfrid Laurier University and Balsillie school of International Affairs).Digitalization, spurred by the pandemic, has accelerated plans by many central banks to introduce retail...

The coexistence of cash and digital currencies constitutes a system of parallel currencies. This paper tackles the question whether a new (digital) currency is essential: Does a new currency allow for a better resource allocation even if a fully accepted currency is in circulation and still...