Review of George Selgin, Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage

摘要

Despite their general commitment to the market as the preferred process of resource allocation, economists do have a few areas that they often treat as exceptions to this principle. Foremost among those, for most economists, is the production of money. It is a widely accepted belief that private enterprise and the profit motive are incapable of producing money and near-moneys in a way that would assure both quality and macroeconomic stability. The power of both the mint and the printing press must be under the control of government if those two goals are to be achieved.