IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/germec/v4y2003i3p389-408.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competition Necessarily Tends to Produce Excess: The Experience of Free Banking in Switzerland

Author

Listed:
  • Manfred Neldner

Abstract

According to McCulloch, Longfield and Loyd, a free banking system is always prone to overissues of bank notes. Their view is supported by the free banking era in Switzerland (1826–1907), where, due to competitive pressures within the banking community and the absence of note‐brand loyalty on the part of the general public, overissues (causing a rise in the foreign exchange rates above the upper gold and silver points) finally became permanent. Free competition, therefore, had to give way to collusive action and, in 1907 (with the open consent of the issuing banks), to the establishment of the Swiss National Bank.

Suggested Citation

  • Manfred Neldner, 2003. "Competition Necessarily Tends to Produce Excess: The Experience of Free Banking in Switzerland," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 4(3), pages 389-408, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:germec:v:4:y:2003:i:3:p:389-408
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-0475.00086
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0475.00086
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1468-0475.00086?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Selgin, George, 1994. "Free Banking and Monetary Control," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(427), pages 1449-1459, November.
    2. Frankel, Jeffrey A, 1979. "On the Mark: A Theory of Floating Exchange Rates Based on Real Interest Differentials," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(4), pages 610-622, September.
    3. Milton Friedman & Anna J. Schwartz, 1987. "Has Government Any Role in Money?," NBER Chapters, in: Money in Historical Perspective, pages 289-314, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. George A. Selgin & Lawrence H. White, 1994. "How Would the Invisible Hand Handle Money?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1718-1749, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nils Herger, 2021. "Regulated free banking in Switzerland (1881–1907)," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 157(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Herger, Nils, 2022. "Unregulated and regulated free banking: Evidence from the case of Switzerland (1826–1907)," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Alexander Fink, 2014. "Free banking as an evolving system: The case of Switzerland reconsidered," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 27(1), pages 57-69, March.
    4. Nils Herger, 2019. "Unregulated and regulated free banking. The case of Switzerland reinterpreted," Working Papers 19.06, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:bla:germec:v:4:y:2003:i::p:389-408 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Gentier Antoine, 2013. "3 Comments on “An Austrian Defense of the Euro”," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 19(1), pages 29-40, December.
    3. Selgin, George, 2015. "Synthetic commodity money," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 92-99.
    4. Anthony M. Endres, 2009. "Currency Competition: A Hayekian Perspective on International Monetary Integration," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(6), pages 1251-1263, September.
    5. Nils Herger, 2019. "Unregulated and regulated free banking. The case of Switzerland reinterpreted," Working Papers 19.06, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    6. George C. Bitros, 2015. "Thinking Ahead of the Next Big Crash," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 35(1), pages 67-93, Winter.
    7. Bagus, Philipp & Howden, David, 2010. "Fractional Reserve Banking: Some Quibbles," MPRA Paper 79590, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Jesús Fernández‐Villaverde, 2018. "Cryptocurrencies: A Crash Course in Digital Monetary Economics," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 51(4), pages 514-526, December.
    9. Alexander William Salter & Andrew T. Young, 2015. "Would a Free Banking System Target NGDP Growth?," Working Papers 15-08, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    10. repec:wvu:wpaper:10-20 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Sanches, Daniel, 2019. "Can currency competition work?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 1-15.
    12. Gentier Antoine, 2000. "Liberte Bancaire Ou Regulation Par Une Autorite Monetaire ?: Une Comparaison De Deux Systemes En Longue Periode: - Le Massachusetts (1803-1858) - La France (1800-1870)," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 119-156, March.
    13. Bitros, George C., 2020. "Thinking ahead of the next big crash: Clues from Athens in classical times," MPRA Paper 101217, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Young, Andrew T. & Dove, John A., 2013. "Policing the chain gang: Panel cointegration analysis of the stability of the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 182-196.
    15. Giuseppina Gianfreda & Nathalie Janson, 2001. "Le banche di emissione in Italia tra il 1861 e il 1893: un caso di concorrenza?," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 91(1), pages 15-74, January.
    16. Salter, Alexander William & Young, Andrew T., 2018. "A theory of self-enforcing monetary constitutions with reference to the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 13-22.
    17. Alexander William Salter, 2017. "Playing at markets: A New Austrian perspective on macroeconomic policy," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 30(1), pages 39-49, March.
    18. Peter J. Boettke & Daniel J. Smith, 2016. "Evolving views on monetary policy in the thought of Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 29(4), pages 351-370, December.
    19. Hendrickson, Joshua R. & Salter, Alexander W., 2018. "Going beyond monetary constitutions: The congruence of money and finance," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 22-28.
    20. Salter, Alexander William & Young, Andrew T., 2018. "Would a free banking system stabilize NGDP growth?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 21-25.
    21. Ryan H. Murphy, 2013. "A Comparative Analysis of Free Banking and Central Bank NGDP Targeting," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 29(Fall 2013), pages 25-39.
    22. Dal Bianco, Marcos & Camacho, Maximo & Perez Quiros, Gabriel, 2012. "Short-run forecasting of the euro-dollar exchange rate with economic fundamentals," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 377-396.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:germec:v:4:y:2003:i:3:p:389-408. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.