WEEK 1: Financial Intermediation

Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk. i, ch. 2; bk. iv, ch. 2; bk. ii, ch. 3.*

Hayek: "The Use of Knowledge in Society," Amer.Econ.Rev., Sept. 1945.

O'Hara: "Taking Stock in Stock Markets: The Changing Governance of Exchanges."

Wood: "Financial Intermediation,"

Paper: How do you choose a financial intermediary for your money? For another investment? (Choose one.) Can the regulators help you?

WEEK 2: Money and Gold

Wood: Money: Its Origins, Development, Debasement and Prospects, AIER EEB, 1999.

Wood: "Gold Standards,"

Bordo and Rockoff: "The Gold Standard as a 'Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval'," NBER Working Paper 5340, 1995.

Bordo and White: "A Tale of Two Currencies: British and French Finance during the Napoleonic Wars," J.Econ. Hist., June 1991.

Paper: The gold standard constrained monetary and fiscal policy, but was not automatic. What were its limits and how would it have affected the war on terror?

WEEK 3: Competition and Gold

Wood: "Competitive Money and Banking,"

White: Free Banking in Britain: Theory, Experience, and Debate, 1800-1845, ch. 1-2.

Selgin and White: "The Evolution of a Free Banking System," Econ. Inquiry, July 1987.

Akerlof and Yellen: "Can Small Deviations from Rationality Make Significant Differences in Economic Equilibria?" Amer.Econ.Rev., Sept. 1985*. (Read for Schwartz seminar, July 26.)

Paper: Is money neutral?

WEEK 4: Private Resumption

Wood: Monetary Policy in Democracies: Four Resumptions and the Great Depression, AIER EEB, 2000.

Wood: "The Triumph of Private Discretion over Official Rules: Four Examples," AIER Gold Resumption Conference.

Crook and Wood: "Private Paths to Resumption," AIER Gold Resumption Conference.

Wright: "International Private Money," AIER Gold Resumption Conference.

Paper: Describe how gold resumption could come about?