TOPICS COVERED
1. Money — functions & forms — metal, paper, plastic and bits — market-based versus fiat-based
2. Banking — financial intermediation — types; depository, commercial, investment — free banking versus central banking
3. Public Finance — funding of government spending — taxing, borrowing and money-creation — deficits, debts and unfunded entitlements — fiscal rectitude versus fiscal profligacy
READINGS
Selgin, George, and Lawrence White. 1987. “The Evolution of a Free Banking System.” Economic Inquiry. Volume 25, Issue 3, pages 439–457.
The Importance of the Dollar as World Currency (Podcast with Barry Eichengreen) (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011…)
Surowiecki, James, “A Brief History of Money,” (http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/inno…)
Dr. Salsman is president of
InterMarket Forecasting, Inc., an assistant professor of political economy at
Duke University and a senior fellow at the
American Institute for Economic Research. Previously he was an economist at Wainwright Economics, Inc. and a banker at the Bank of New York and Citibank. Dr. Salsman has authored three books:
Breaking the Banks: Central Banking Problems and Free Banking Solutions (AIER, 1990),
Gold and Liberty (AIER, 1995), and
The Political Economy of Public Debt: Three Centuries of Theory and Evidence (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017). In 2021 his fourth book –
Where Have all the Capitalist Gone? – will be published by the American Institute for Economic Research. He is also author of a dozen chapters and scores of articles. His work has appeared in the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, Reason Papers, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Forbes, the Economist, the Financial Post, the Intellectual Activist, and The Objective Standard. Dr. Salsman earned his B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College (1981), his M.A. in economics from New York University (1988), and his Ph.D. in political economy from Duke University (2012). His personal website is
richardsalsman.com.
