This Month at Cato Unbound: The Federal Reserve at 100

We have now had 100 years of central banking. So what do we have to show for it? Has the Federal Reserve been worth it? If not, what should we do? 


That’s the topic of this month’s Cato Unbound. Our panel will present a variety of viewpoints, starting with Cato Senior Fellow Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr., who argues that a central bank is unnecessary in a classical regime of commodity money and free banking. Central banks are only needed, he argues, when governments want to spend beyond their means. He recommends returning to fiscal discipline and then to commodity money, under which a central bank will be unnecessary.


Opinions do differ on these questions, of course, and we will also hear from George Mason University Professor Lawrence H. White, Bentley University Professor Scott Sumner and former Cleveland Federal Reserve President Jerry L. Jordan. Readers are invited to submit comments and to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for regular updates and discussion.