Lawrence H. White

Lawrence H. White, PhD is the F.A. Hayek Professor of Economic History with the University of Missouri - St. Louis Economics department. Dr. White is a believer in the Austrian "free-market" school of economics and an important modern-day analyst of the history and practicality of money issue by so-called free - "private" - banks ing. Dr. White's investigations of redeemable competitive currency issuances (also known as "fiat money" because it is backed by fractional reserves) by major Scottish banks several hundred years ago were ground-breaking and even today remain controversial. According to Dr. White, it is probably best left up to the marketplace to determine the amount of currency an individual private bank can issue, and the rates of interest that the fiat money will demand on bank loans and deposits. Professor White's analysis does not condone the current system of government-supported central banks and, in fact, make a strict distinction between private banks and leads to a critique of the modern banking system that rests on a government central bank having a monopoly of currency issue.