Quote from: patvarilly on July 19, 2011, 06:01:19 AM

Quote from: hugolp on July 19, 2011, 05:56:46 AM

Canada during the XIX century was that way (and btw, they had no central bank and no banking panics). There are other numerous examples.

For raw data about the USA XIX century one of the best sources is the book Milton Friedman and Anna Swartz, although the book has very flawed conclussions due to their lack of valid economic theory. Rothbard's History of Money and Banking in the USA from the... is good to understand what happened.

Then you can read Lawrence White about Scotland during the XVII century or George Selgin about Canada.

Thanks for the pointers. I'm usually deeply skeptical of Austrian economics, but I'll try and get a hold of these to see what the data and their arguments are.

Read "free banking" theory, you will be surprised. The mentioned Lawrence White and George Selgin along with Steve Horwitz are the main proponents of free banking (that I know).