Full-reserve banking

Full-reserve banking (also known as 100% reserve banking) is a proposed alternative to fractional-reserve banking in which banks would be required to keep the full amount of each depositor's funds in cash, ready for immediate withdrawal on demand. Funds deposited by customers in demand deposit accounts (such as checking accounts) would not be loaned out by the bank because it would be legally required to retain the full deposit to satisfy potential demand for payments. Proposals for such systems generally do not place such restrictions on deposits that are not payable on demand, for example time deposits.[1]

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Monetary reforms that included full-reserve banking have been proposed in the past, notably in 1935 by a group of economists, including Irving Fisher, as a response to the Great Depression.[2] More recently, there has been renewed interest following the Great Recession.[3]

Currently, no country in the world requires full-reserve banking. Banks operating under a full-reserve ratio generally do so by choice or by contract, although the governments in some countries such as Iceland and the US have considered implementing full reserve banking to avoid future financial crises.[4][5] In 2018, Switzerland voted on the Sovereign Money Initiative which has full reserve banking as a prominent component of its proposed reform of the Swiss monetary system.[6] The measure was overwhelmingly rejected.[7]

Views

In favor
Main article: Monetary reform

Economist Milton Friedman at one time advocated a 100% reserve requirement for checking accounts,[17] and economist Laurence Kotlikoff has also called for an end to fractional-reserve banking.[18] Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard has written that reserves of less than 100% constitute fraud on the part of banks and should be illegal, and that full-reserve banking would eliminate the risk of bank runs.[19][20] Jesús Huerta de Soto, another economist of the Austrian school, has also strongly argued in favor of full-reserve banking and the outlawing of fractional reserve banking.[21]

The financial crisis of 2007–2008 led to renewed interest in full reserve banking and sovereign money issued by a central bank. Monetary reformers point out that fractional reserve banking leads to unpayable debt, growing economic inequality, inevitable bankruptcy, and an imperative for perpetual and unsustainable economic growth.[22] Martin Wolf, chief economist at the Financial Times, endorsed full reserve banking, saying "it would bring huge advantages".[3]

Money supply problems

In The Mystery of Banking, Murray Rothbard argues that legalized fractional-reserve banking gave banks "carte blanche" to create money out of thin air.[23] Economists that formulated the Chicago Plan following the Great Depression argue that allowing banks to have fractional reserves puts too much power in the hands of banks by allowing them to determine the amount of money in circulation by changing the amount of loans they give out.[24]

Is fractional-reserve banking fraud?

Deposit bankers become loan bankers when they issue fake warehouse receipts that are not backed by the assets actually held, thus constituting fraud.[23] Rothbard likens this practice to counterfeiting, with the loan banker extracting resources from the public.[23] However, Bryan Caplan argues that fractional-reserve banking does not constitute fraud, as by Rothbard's own admission an advertised product must simply meet the "common definition" of that product believed by consumers. Caplan contends that it is part of the common definition of a modern bank to make loans against demand deposits, thus not constituting fraud.[25]

Balance sheet fundamentals

Furthermore, Friedman argues that fractional reserve banking is fundamentally unsound because of the timescale of a bank's balance sheet.[26] While a typical firm should have its assets be due prior to the payment date of its liabilities, so that the liabilities can be paid, the fractional reserve deposit bank has its demand deposit liabilities due at any point the depositor chooses, and its assets, being the loans it has made with someone else's deposits, due at some later date.[26]

Against

New fees

Some economists have noted that under full-reserve banking, because banks would not earn revenue from lending against demand deposits, depositors would have to pay fees for the services associated with checking accounts. This, it is felt, would probably be rejected by the public[27][28] although with central bank zero and negative interest rate policies, some writers have noted depositors are already experiencing paying to put their savings even in fractional reserve banks.[29]

Shadow banking and unregulated institutions

In their influential paper on financial crises, economists Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig warned that under full-reserve banking, since banks would not be permitted to lend out funds deposited in demand accounts, this function would be taken over by unregulated institutions. Unregulated institutions (such as high-yield debt issuers) would take over the economically necessary role of financial intermediation and maturity transformation, therefore destabilizing the financial system and leading to more frequent financial crises.[30][31]

Writing in response to various writers' support for full reserve banking, Paul Krugman stated that the idea was "certainly worth talking about", but worries that it would drive financial activity outside the banking system, into the less regulated shadow banking system.[32]

Misses the problem

Krugman argues that the 2008 financial crisis was not largely a result of depositors attempting to withdraw deposits from commercial banks, but a large-scale run on shadow banking.[33] As financial markets seemed to have recovered more quickly than the 'real economy', Krugman sees the recession more as a result of excess leverage and household balance-sheet issues.[33] Neither of these issues would be addressed by a full-reserve regulation on commercial banks, he claims.[33]

Further reform

Kotlikoff and Leamer promote the concept of limited purpose banking (LPB), in which banks, now mutual funds, would never fail, as they would be barred from owning financial assets, and their borrowing would be limited to financing their own operations.[34] By establishing a Federal Financial Authority, with the task of rating, verifying, disclosing and clearing all LPB mutual funds, there would be no need to outsource such tasks to private entities with perverse incentives or lack of oversight.[34] Cash mutual funds would also be created, holding only cash tied to the value of the United States dollar, eliminating the threat of bank runs, and insurance mutual funds would be established to pay off the losses of those that own part of the mutual fund, as insurance companies are currently able to sell plans that purport to insure events for which it would be impossible for them to pay off the entirety of the losses experienced by the insured parties.[34] The authors contend that LPB can accommodate any conceivable risk product, including credit default swaps.[34] Under LPB, liquidity would increase as such funds become publicly available to the market, which would determine how much bank employees would be paid.[34]

Most importantly, what limited purpose banking won't do is leave any bank exposed to CDS risk since people, not banks, would own the CDS mutual funds.[34]

Could mutual funds be the answer?

Such proposed mutual funds are already in existence, in the form of tontines and parimutuel betting. However, others claim that despite being quite popular in the early 20th century, tontines fell from public prominence after several scandals. Tontines, even during their popularity, were seen by many as off-putting, as those that invested in tontines would see larger regular payments as other investors died.[35] However, a modern tontine might still be a viable future alternative to other retirement plans, as they provide continuing payment based on the number of years the investor continues to live.[35]

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See also

References
  1. A Program for Monetary Reform
  2. Fisher, Irving (1935), 100% Money
  3. Weisenthal, Joe. "BAN ALL THE BANKS: Here's The Wild Idea That People Are Starting To Take Seriously". Business Insider.
  4. Iceland's daring raid on fractional reserve banks, Financial Times
  5. A banking revolution Jeremy Warner, UK Telegraph
  6. Switzerland's ‘Vollgeld’ banking overhaul: how reform would work
  7. "Vote survey shows no generation gap but misunderstandings".
  8. analysis, Full Bio Follow Linkedin Follow Twitter Kimberly Amadeo has 20 years of experience in economic; Amadeo, business strategy She writes about the U. S. Economy for The Balance Read The Balance's editorial policies Kimberly. "How Banks Lend $9 Out of Every $10 You Deposit". The Balance. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  9. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US) (1984-02-08). "Reserve Balances Required; Reserve Balance Requirements". FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  10. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US) (1973-01-03). "Deposits, All Commercial Banks". FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  11. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US) (1985-01-01). "Delinquency Rate on All Loans, All Commercial Banks". FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  12. Ingham, Geoffrey (2004). The Nature of Money. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
  13. Michell, Jo (2017). "Do Shadow Banks Create Money? 'Financialisation' and the Monetary Circuit". Metroeconomica. 68 (2): 354–377. doi:10.1111/meca.12149. ISSN 1467-999X.
  14. Turner, Adair (2015-10-20). Between debt and the devil : money, credit, and fixing global finance. Princeton. ISBN 978-0-691-16964-4. OCLC 908083943.
  15. "Wayback Machine" (PDF). 2011-06-04. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-04. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  16. "Martin Wolf: Banking, credit and money". CORE. 2013-11-11. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  17. Solow, Robert M. (March 28, 2002), "On the Lender of Last Resort", Financial crises, contagion, and the lender of last resort, Oxford University Press, p. 203, ISBN 978-0-19-924721-9
  18. Kotlikoff, Laurence J.; Leamer, Edward (April 23, 2009), "A Banking System We Can Trust" (PDF), Forbes.com, archived from the original (PDF) on June 4, 2011, retrieved September 14, 2010
  19. Rothbard, Murray N., The Mystery of Banking (PDF), Ludwig von Mises Institute, ISBN 978-1-933550-28-2, retrieved September 14, 2010
  20. The Case for a 100% Gold Dollar, Murray Rothbard
  21. Jesús Huerta de Soto (2012). Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles (3rd ed.). Ludwig von Mises Institute. ISBN 978-1-61016-388-0. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  22. Jackson, Andrew; Dyson, Ben (2012). Modernizing Money. Why our Monetary System is Broken and how it can be Fixed. Positive Money. ISBN 978-0-9574448-0-5.
  23. Rothbard, Murray N. (Murray Newton), 1926-1995. (2008). The mystery of banking (2nd ed.). Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute. ISBN 978-1-933550-28-2. OCLC 275097518.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  24. "100% Reserve Banking — The History". House of Debt. 2014-04-26. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  25. Caplan, Bryan (2011-05-12). "The Morality of Fractional Reserve Banking". Econlib.
  26. Rothbard, Murray N. (Murray Newton), 1926-1995. (2008). The mystery of banking (2nd ed.). Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute. ISBN 978-1-933550-28-2. OCLC 275097518.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  27. White, Lawrence H. (Winter 2003). "Accounting for Fractional-Reserve Banknotes and Deposits—or, What's Twenty Quid to the Bloody Midland Bank?" (PDF). The Independent Review. 7 (3): 423–41. ISSN 1086-1653. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-04-29. Retrieved 2012-11-30.
  28. Allen, William (October 1993). "Irving Fisher and the 100 Percent Reserve Proposal". Journal of Law and Economics. 36 (2): 703–17. doi:10.1086/467295. JSTOR 725805.
  29. Texan Gold Depository
  30. Diamond, Douglas W.; Philip H. Dybvig (Jan 1986), "Banking Theory, Deposit Insurance, and Bank Regulation", The Journal of Business, 59 (1): 55–68, doi:10.1086/296314, JSTOR 2352687, In conclusion, 100% reserve banking is a dangerous proposal that would do substantial damage to the economy by reducing the overall amount of liquidity. Furthermore, the proposal is likely to be ineffective in increasing stability since it will be impossible to control the institutions that will enter in the vacuum left when banks can no longer create liquidity. Fortunately, the political realities make it unlikely that this radical and imprudent proposal will be adopted.
  31. Diamond, Douglas; Philip Dybvig (Winter 2000). "Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance, and Liquidity" (PDF). Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review. 24 (1): 14–23. Retrieved 29 August 2012.
  32. Krugman, Paul (April 26, 2014). "Is A Banking Ban The Answer?". New York Times. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
  33. "Is A Banking Ban The Answer?". Paul Krugman Blog. 2014-04-26. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  34. Kotlikoff, Laurence J.; Leamer, Edward (April 23, 2009). "A Banking System We Can Trust" (PDF). Boston University. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 4, 2011. Retrieved March 11, 2020.
  35. Guo, Jeff (September 28, 2015). "It's sleazy, it's totally illegal, and yet it could become the future of retirement". Washington Post. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
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