Is Bitcoin the way to a better money? Is gold?
Chair
Since 1971, central banks have monopolistically issued unanchored fiat currencies. High inflation, peaking in Britain at 11.1 per cent in October 2022, has revived interest in alternatives.
Bitcoin, stablecoins, and plans for central bank digital currencies, including a possible digital pound, have reopened an old argument over the control of money. Fiat monies have performed poorly. In Better Money: Gold, Fiat, or Bitcoin? (Cambridge University Press, 2023), Lawrence H. White uses supply-and-demand analysis to compare gold, fiat, and Bitcoin standards and their behaviour under shocks. The book dispels popular errors about gold and Bitcoin and traces the long rivalry between private and state money. Professor White will draw on the book to judge which of the three standards—or something else—promises the soundest money in a digital age. Every saver has a stake in the answer.
About the speaker
Lawrence White is Emeritus Professor at George Mason University. He specializes in the theory and history of banking and money. He previously taught at New York University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Missouri - St. Louis. Professor White is the author of The Clash of Economic Ideas (2012), The Theory of Monetary Institutions (1999), Free Banking in Britain (2nd ed., 1995), and Competition and Currency (1989). He is the editor of The History of Gold and Silver (3 vols., 2000), Free Banking (3 vols., 1993), and other volumes. His articles on monetary theory and banking history have appeared in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Economic Literature, the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, and other leading professional journals.
Mani Basharzad, an economic journalist, will join the panel as a discussant.
More about this event
The Hayek Programme in Economics and Liberal Political Economy is a research initiative based at STICERD.
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