Gerald P. Dwyer

The Economics of Bitcoin and Similar Private Digital Currencies

Recent innovations have made it feasible to transfer private digital currency without the intervention of an institution. A digital currency must prevent users from spending their balances more than once, which is easier said than done with purely digital currencies. Current digital currencies such as Bitcoin use peer-to-peer networks and open-source software to stop double spending and create finality of transactions. This paper explains how the use of these technologies and limitation of the quantity produced can create an equilibrium in which a digital currency has a positive value. This paper also summarizes the rise of 24/7 trading on computerized markets in Bitcoin in which there are no brokers or other agents, a remarkable innovation in financial markets. I conclude that exchanges of foreign currency may be the obvious way in which use of digital currencies can become widespread and that Bitcoin is likely to limit governments’ revenue from inflation.Recent innovations have made it feasible to transfer private digital currency without the intervention of an institution. A digital currency must prevent users from spending their balances more than once, which is easier said than done with purely digital currencies. Current digital currencies such as Bitcoin use peer-to-peer networks and open-source software to stop double spending and create finality of transactions. This paper explains how the use of these technologies and limitation of the quantity produced can create an equilibrium in which a digital currency has a positive value. This paper also summarizes the rise of 24/7 trading on computerized markets in Bitcoin in which there are no brokers or other agents, a remarkable innovation in financial markets. I conclude that exchanges of foreign currency may be the obvious way in which use of digital currencies can become widespread and that Bitcoin is likely to limit governments’ revenue from inflation.

Does Opening a Stock Exchange Increase Economic Growth

We examine the connection between the creation of stock exchanges and economic growth with a new set of data on economic growth that spans a longer time period than generally available. We find that economic growth increases relative to the rest of the world after a stock exchange opens. Our evidence indicates that increased growth of productivity is the primary way that a stock exchange increases the growth rate of output, rather than an increase in the growth rate of physical capital. We also find that financial deepening is rapid before the creation of a stock exchange and slower subsequently.

Banking Crises and Economic Freedom

We examine the connection between banking crises and measures of economic freedom disseminated by the Fraser Institute. We find that higher economic freedom – more personal choice, freedom of exchange, and protection of private property – is associated with a lower probability of a banking crisis. This is contrary to conventional wisdom that financial “deregulation” contributes to financial and banking crises. This finding appears in estimates from both a linear probability and a probit model. This finding also is unaffected by inclusion of the growth of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), deposit insurance, time or country dummy variables or the level of real GDP.

Inflation and Monetary Regimes

Correlations of inflation with the growth rate of money increase when data are averaged over longer time periods. Correlations of inflation with the growth of money also are higher when high-inflation as well as low-inflation countries are included in the analysis. We show that serial correlation in the underlying inflation rate ties these two observations together and explains them. We present evidence that averaging increases the correlation of inflation and money growth more when the underlying inflation rate has higher serial correlation.

Expected Returns to Stock Investments by Angel Investors in Groups

Previous research calculates realised internal rates of return on angel investments but does not estimate expected returns. We present the first estimates of expected returns on angel investments by applying a consistent statistical framework to a new data set. Our sample spans 1972 to 2007 with 419 exited investments. Our results suggest that expected returns on stock for angel investors in groups are about 70% per year in excess of the riskfree rate. These expected returns have a large variance and are heavily skewed, with many losses and occasional extraordinarily high returns.

International money and common currencies in historical perspective

The authors review the history of international monies and the theory related to their adoption and use. There are four key characteristics of these currencies: high unitary value; relatively low inflation rates for long periods; issuance by major economic and trading powers; and spontaneous, as opposed to planned, adoption internationally. The economic theory of the demand for money provides support for the importance of these characteristics. The value of a unit is arbitrary for a fiat money, but the other characteristics are likely to be important for determining any fiat money that will be the international money in the future. If the euro continues to exist for the next half century or so and has a relatively stable value, the authors conclude that the euro is likely to be serious competition for the dollar as the international money.

Factor Returns, Institutions, and Geography: A View From Trade

The authors show that estimated productivities of labor and capital, which rationalize trade flows across countries, are related to total factor productivities, which rationalize output differences across countries. They present evidence that these productivities from trade are related to the institutions and geography across countries. Protection of property rights is the dominant influence on both labor and capital productivity, with geography less important and democracy even less important. The authors also present preliminary evidence that protection of property rights has similar effects on workers with only primary education as on those with more education.

The Economics of International Monies

The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of international monies and the theory related to their adoption and use. We summarize the history of international monies, beginning with a discussion of the gold solidus introduced in the fourth century by the Emperor Constantine, continuing with the currencies of the Italian city states and ending with the currencies that have functioned as international monies from the early modern period to the present. We identify four key characteristics of these currencies: high unitary value; relatively low inflation rates for long periods; issuance by major economic and trading powers; and spontaneous, as opposed to planned, adoption internationally. We conclude with a theoretical discussion of these common characteristics that explains much of this history.

Blockchain: a primer

The Bitcoin blockchain is the primary innovation in Bitcoin that makes it practical. Blockchains have applications in many contexts other than cryptocurrencies. This note is an introduction to blockchains that requires no prior knowledge, including of Bitcoin. Blockchains are ledgers of transactions kept by a set of participants, none of which is accorded special status as the “correct one.” Instead, agreement is reached by a process of consensus. I show how this works for Bitcoin, discuss applications in many alternative settings and provide some detail about a very different proof-of-concept application of blockchains by the Japan Exchange Group.

Milton Friedman: A Bayesian?

Milton Friedman’s empirical research is very different in tone and substance than the research in a typical journal article. This chapter points out that the difference in tone and substance is directly related to Friedman’s views on the foundations of statistics. Instead of viewing statistics as a classical statistician might, Friedman viewed statistics through the lens of personal probability. This had substantial implications for his overall research agenda and the particulars of his empirical work. He emphasized agreement across various sets of data because such evidence was more likely to produce agreement among economists than tests on a single set of data. He put less emphasis on statistical significance of results at least partly because of the problems involved in interpreting multiple tests on the same data.