Selgin on Steil and Hinds

Steven Horwitz

George Selgin has a review of a new book Money, Markets, and Sovereignty up at the EH.net website.  It's a nice overview of some important issues surrounding money and nationalism.

Comments

[Lee Kelly]

Selgin said: "That many of the world's citizens would be better off using dollars or euros than continuing to be forced to rely on their own governments' monies is certainly true"

This is really thought provoking. It had never occured to me before now, but promoting the use of stable foriegn monies could be a novel way to aid development in poor nations.

[Pablo]

Lee,

Cant really say that. El Salvador and Panamá have dollar economies and they have on average higher inflation than in the U. S., up to 8% per annum in Panamá.

[George Selgin]

Pablo: What, in your opinion, would the overall inflation rates in El Salvador and Panama have been, for the periods in which these countries have been dollarized, had they instead had independent fiat currencies? The question demands a counterfactual, of course. But how 'bout if we let the average inflation rate of all other Central and South American countries during the same span of years serve as our estimate. Do you still think dollarization would have been the worse choice?

Of course, w.r.t. fiat monies, "stability" is a relative notion.

[Lode Cossaer]

I love your style. <3

[Lode Cossaer]

(And now I understand how it is possible to make comments on the wrong post. Obviously, this comment was mend for the next blogpost called 'another new gig'. :))