CONTENTS
         Preface to the English-Language Edition
         Preface to the Second Spanish Edition
         Introduction
         Chapter 1: The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract
         A Preliminary Clarification of Terms: Loan Contracts (Mutuum and Commodatum)and Deposit Contracts
         The Commodatum Contract
         The Mutuum Contract
         The Deposit Contract
         The Deposit of Fungible Goods or "Irregular" Deposit Contract
         The Economic and Social Function of Irregular Deposits
         The Fundamental Element in the Monetary Irregular Deposit
         Resulting Effects of the Failure to Comply with the Essential Obligation in the Irregular Deposit
         Court Decisions Acknowledging the Fundamental Legal Principles which Govern the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract (100-Percent Reserve Requirement)
         The Essential Differences Between the Irregular Deposit Contract and the Monetary Loan Contract
         The Extent to Which Property Rights are Transferred in Each Contract
         Fundamental Economic Differences Between the Two Contracts
         Fundamental Legal Differences Between the Two Contracts
         The Discovery by Roman Legal Experts of the General Legal Principles Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract
         The Emergence of Traditional Legal Principles According to Menger, Hayek and Leoni
         Roman Jurisprudence
         The Irregular Deposit Contract Under Roman Law
         Chapter 2: Historical Violations of the Legal Principles Legal Principles Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract
         Introduction
         Banking in Greece and Rome
         Trapezitei, or Greek Bankers
         Banking in the Hellenistic World
         Banking in Rome
         The Failure of the Christian Callistus's Bank
         The Societates Argentariae
         Bankers in the Late Middle Ages
         The Revival of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe
         The Canonical Ban on Usury and the "Depositum Confessatum"
         Banking in Florence in the Fourteenth Century
         The Medici Bank
         Banking in Catalonia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: The Taula de Canvi
         Banking During the Reign of Charles V and the Doctrine of the School of Salamanca
         The Development of Banking in Seville
         The School of Salamanca and the Banking Business
         A New Attempt at Legitimate Banking: The Bank of Amsterdam.
         Banking in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
         The Bank of Amsterdam
         David Hume and the Bank of Amsterdam
         Sir James Steuart, Adam Smith and the Bank of Amsterdam
         The Banks of Sweden and England
         John Law and Eighteenth-Century Banking in France
         Richard Cantillon and the Fraudulent Violation of the Irregular-Deposit Contract
         Chapter 3: Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking
         Introduction
         Why it is Impossible to Equate the Irregular Deposit with the Loan or Mutuum Contract
         The Roots of the Confusion
         The Mistaken Doctrine of Common Law
         The Doctrine of Spanish Civil and Commercial Codes
         Criticism of the Attempt to Equate the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract with the Loan or Mutuum Contract
         The Distinct Cause or Purpose of Each Contract
         The Notion of the Unspoken or Implicit Agreement
         An Inadequate Solution: The Redefinition of the Concept of Availability
         The Monetary Irregular Deposit, Transactions with a Repurchase Agreement and Life Insurance Contracts
         Transactions with a Repurchase Agreement
         The Case of Life Insurance Contract
         Chapter 4: The Credit Expansion Process
         Introduction
         The Bank's Role as a True Intermediary in the Loan Contract
         The Bank's Role in the Monetary Bank-Deposit Contract
         The Effects Produced by Bankers' Use of Demand Deposits: The Case of an Individual Bank
         The Continental Accounting System
         Accounting Practices in the English-speaking World
         An Isolated Bank's Capacity for Credit Expansion and Deposit Creation
         The Case of a Very Small Bank
         Credit Expansion and Ex Nihilo Deposit Creation by a Sole, Monopolistic Bank
         Credit Expansion and New Deposit Creation by the Entire Banking System
         Creation of Loans in a System of Small Banks
         A Few Additional Difficulties
         When Expansion is Initiated Simultaneously by All Banks
         Filtering Out the Money Supply From the Banking System
         The Maintenance of Reserves Exceeding the Minimum Requirement
         Different Reserve Requirements for Different Types of Deposits
         The Parallels Between the Creation of Deposits and the Issuance of Unbacked Banknotes
         The Credit Tightening Process
         Chapter 5: Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System
         The Foundations of Capital Theory
         Human Action as a Series of Subjective Stages
         Capital and Capital Goods
         The Interest Rate
         The Structure of Production
         Some Additional Considerations
         Criticism of the Measures used in National Income Accounting
         The Effect on the Productive Structure of an Increase in Credit Financed under a Prior Increase in Voluntary Saving
         The Three Different Manifestations of the Process of Voluntary Saving
         Account Records of Savings Channeled into Loans
         The Issue of Consumer Loans
         The Effects of Voluntary Saving on the Productive Structure
         First: The Effect Produced by the New Disparity in Profits Between the Different Productive Stages
         Second: The Effect of the Decrease in the Interest Rate on the Market Price of Capital Goods
         Third: The Ricardo Effect
         Conclusion: The Emergence of a New, More Capital-Intensive Productive Structure
         The Theoretical Solution to the "Paradox of Thrift"
         The Case of an Economy in Regression
         The Effects of Bank Credit Expansion Unbacked by an Increase in Saving: The Austrian Theory or Circulation Credit Theory of the Business Cycle
         The Effects of Credit Expansion on the Productive Structure
         The Market's Spontaneous Reaction to Credit Expansion
         Banking, Fractional-Reserve Ratios and the Law of Large Numbers
         Chapter 6: Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle
         Why no Crisis Erupts when New Investment is Financed by Real Saving (And Not by Credit Expansion)
         The Possibility of Postponing the Eruption of the Crisis: The Theoretical Explanation of the Process of Stagflation
         Consumer Credit and the Theory of the Cycle
         The Self-Destructive Nature of the Artificial Booms Caused by Credit Expansion: The Theory of "Forced Saving"
         The Squandering of Capital, Idle Capacity and Malinvestment of Productive Resources
         Credit Expansion as the Cause of Massive Unemployment
         National Income Accounting is Inadequate to Reflect the Different Stages in the Business Cycle
         Entrepreneurship and the Theory of the Cycle
         The Policy of General-Price-Level Stabilization and its Destabilizing Effects on the Economy
         How to Avoid Business Cycles: Prevention of and Recovery from the Economic Crisis
         The Theory of the Cycle and Idle Resources: Their Role in the Initial Stages of the Boom
         The Necessary Tightening of Credit in the Recession Stage: Criticism of the Theory of "Secondary Depression"
         The "Manic-Depressive" Economy: The Dampening of the Entrepreneurial Spirit and Other Negative Effects Recurring Business Cycles Exert on the Market Economy
         The Influence Exerted on the Stock Market by Economic Fluctuations
         Effects the Business Cycle Exerts on the Banking Sector
         Marx, Hayek and the View that Economic Crises are Intrinsic to Market Economies
         Two Additional Considerations
         Empirical Evidence for the Theory of the Cycle
         Business Cycles Prior to the Industrial Revolution
         Business Cycles From the Industrial Revolution Onward
         The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression of 1929
         The Economic Recessions of the Late 1970s and Early 1990s
         Some Empirical Testing of the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle
         Conclusion
         Chapter 7: A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories
         Introduction
         A Critique of Monetarism
         The Mythical Concept of Capital
         Austrian Criticism of Clark and Knight
         A Critique of the Mechanistic Monetarist Version of the Quantity Theory of Money
         A Brief Note on the Theory of Rational Expectations
         Criticism of Keynesian Economics
         Say's Law of Markets
         Keynes's Three Arguments On Credit Expansion
         Keynesian Analysis as a Particular Theory
         The So-Called Marginal Efficiency of Capital
         Keynes's Criticism of Mises and Hayek
         Criticism of the Keynesian Multiplier
         Criticism of the "Accelerator" Principle
         The Marxist Tradition and the Austrian Theory of Economic Cycles: The Neo-Ricardian Revolution and the Reswitching Controversy
         Conclusion
         Appendix on Life Insurance Companies and Other Non-Bank Financial Intermediaries
         Life Insurance Companies as True Financial Intermediaries
         Surrender Values and the Money Supply
         The Corruption of Traditional Life-Insurance Principles
         Other True Financial Intermediaries: Mutual Funds and Holding and Investment Companies
         Specific Comments on Credit Insurance
         Chapter 8: Central and Free Banking Theory
         A Critical Analysis of the Banking School
         The Banking and Currency Views and the School of Salamanca
         The Response of the English-Speaking World to these Ideas on Bank Money
         The Controversy Between the Currency School and the Banking School
         The Debate Between Defenders of the Central Bank and Advocates of Free Banking
         Parnell's Pro-Free-Banking Argument and the Responses of McCulloch and Longfield
         A False Start for the Controversy Between Central Banking and Free Banking
         The Case for a Central Bank
         The Position of the Currency-School Theorists who Defended a Free-Banking System
         The "Theorem of the Impossibility of Socialism" and its Application to the Central Bank
         The Theory of the Impossibility of Coordinating Society Based on Institutional Coercion or the Violation of Traditional Legal Principles
         The Application of the Theorem of the Impossibility of Socialism to the Central Bank and the Fractional-Reserve Banking System
         (a) A System Based on a Central Bank Which Controls and Oversees a Network of Private Banks that Operate with a Fractional Reserve
         (b) A Banking System which Operates with a 100-Percent Reserve Ratio and is Controlled by a Central Bank
         (c) A Fractional-Reserve Free-Banking System
         Conclusion: The Failure of Banking Legislation
         A Critical Look at the Modern Fractional-Reserve Free-Banking School
         The Erroneous Basis of the Analysis: The Demand for Fiduciary Media, Regarded as an Exogenous Variable
         The Possibility that a Fractional-Reserve Free-Banking System May Unilaterally Initiate Credit Expansion
         The Theory of "Monetary Equilibrium" in Free Banking Rests on an Exclusively Macroeconomic Analysis
         The Confusion Between the Concept of Saving and that of the Demand for Money
         The Problem with Historical Illustrations of Free-Banking Systems
         Ignorance of Legal Arguments
         Conclusion: The False Debate between Supporters of Central Banking and Defenders of Fractional-Reserve Free Banking
         Chapter 9: A Proposal for Banking Reform: The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
         A History of Modern Theories in Support of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
         The Proposal of Ludwig von Mises
         F.A. Hayek and the Proposal of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
         Murray N. Rothbard and the Proposal of a Pure Gold Standard with a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
         Maurice Allais and the European Defense of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
         The Old Chicago-School Tradition of Support for a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
         Our Proposal for Banking Reform
         Total Freedom of Choice in Currency
         A System of Complete Banking Freedom
         The Obligation of All Agents in a Free-Banking System to Observe Traditional Legal Rules and Principles, Particularly a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement on Demand Deposits
         What Would the Financial and Banking System of a Totally Free Society be Like?
         An Analysis of the Advantages of the Proposed System
         Replies to Possible Objections to our Proposal for Monetary Reform
         An Economic Analysis of the Process of Reform and Transition toward the Proposed Monetary and Banking System
         A Few Basic Strategic Principles
         Stages in the Reform of the Financial and Banking System
         The Importance of the Third and Subsequent Stages in the Reform: The Possibility They Offer of Paying Off the National Debt or Social Security Pension Liabilities
         The Application of the Theory of Banking and Financial Reform to the European Monetary Union and the Building of the Financial Sector in Economies of the Former Eastern Bloc
         Conclusion: The Banking System of a Free Society
         Bibliography
         Index of Subjects
         Index of Names
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