Should Governments Restrict Cash?
Central bankers and mainstream monetary economists have become intrigued with the idea of reducing, or even entirely eliminating, hand-to-hand currency. Yet the arguments for phasing out cash or confining it to small denomination bills are, when not entirely mistaken, extremely weak. In a new paper, Cato scholar Jeffrey Rogers Hummel argues that proponents of restricting cash appreciably oversell any advantages and ignore or understate the severe disadvantages.
Should Cryptocurrencies Be Regulated like Securities?
In less than a decade, cryptocurrencies have moved from the fringes of financial market activity to a $300 billion asset class traded on exchanges and owned by mainstream investors. Yet a great deal of regulatory uncertainty still surrounds cryptocurrencies. A new paper from Cato scholar Diego Zuluaga discusses how cryptocurrencies fit established regulatory practice, and proposes a framework to provide greater regulatory certainty to market participants and enable the growth of this new technology while fulfilling the policy objectives of the relevant regulatory agencies.