Topic: Sound Money Project

Commodity and commodity-backed currencies

– July 15, 2015

A commodity money is an item that individuals consume (or otherwise make use of) that also functions as a commonly accepted medium of exchange.

Sound Money Project

Monetary freedom: Australia vs. the United States

– July 10, 2015

The following is a contribution by a visiting scholar from the Mannkal Foundation in Australia According to the 2015 Heritage Foundation index of economic freedom, the United States is ranked 88th out of 186 countries for monetary freedom, with a scor …

Sound Money Project

Interest rates, profits and competition

– July 9, 2015

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Greg Ip sees a lack of competition in corporate America.

Sound Money Project

NGDP targeting: An overview

– July 8, 2015

The prolonged recovery that followed the Great Recession has brought about increased support for a monetary policy rule known as Nominal Gross Domestic Product (NGDP) targeting. This form of targeting combines employment and inflation into one metric. …

Sound Money Project

Op-ed: The Greek referendum: Will economic principles prevail?

– July 8, 2015

Ultimately, an economy can only sustain itself if it produces more than it consumes. That’s a lesson that the Soviet Union learned the hard way decades ago, explains Atlas Network Sound Money Project Senior Fellow Jerry Jordan in a column for Forbes, b …

Sound Money Project

Op-ed: Was the euro mistake?

– July 7, 2015

Originally posted on the Atlas Network page With Greece rejecting the structural reforms and other terms that it would need to implement for yet another bailout of its crushing government debt, economists are questioning whether the eurozone and its sh …

Sound Money Project

On interest rate targeting

– July 6, 2015

Previously I discussed inflation targeting as a popular rule for governing central bank behavior. In this post I will discuss interest rate targeting, another popular recommendation that has its own costs and benefits. The most prominent interest rate …

Sound Money Project

Understanding the Greek crisis

– June 30, 2015

As I write these lines, it is almost certain that Greece will default on its debt today, June 30. What led to such a disastrous situation? To understand, we must look back in time to the events leading up to and surrounding today’s expected default. A …

Sound Money Project

Why free-banking?

– June 29, 2015

The need for and convenience of a central bank are usually taken for granted. To say that a central bank is a good institution and, therefore, needed, is not enough. Unfortunately, the assumption that central banks are necessary seems to weigh more hea …

Sound Money Project

Inflation targeting as a monetary policy rule

– June 22, 2015

Among economists who agree that monetary policy should be conducted according to predictable rules, perhaps no proposed rule enjoys greater support than inflation targeting. In brief, inflation targeting means the central bank conducts monetary policy …

Sound Money Project

Sound money alternatives series

– June 19, 2015

Over the next few weeks, the Sound Money Project will be running a series of blog posts exploring free-market monetary alternatives. Our dedicated fellows will prepare a series of posts that explain the principles and importance of the following topics …

Sound Money Project

Why are real interest rates so low?

– June 17, 2015

In a recent blog post, Alex Salter discusses the problem of reasoning from a price change in the context of interest rates. Simply put, observing a low interest rate does not necessarily mean that monetary policy is loose (or tight!). Instead, we shoul …