Competition and Finance : A Reinterpretation of Financial and Monetary Economics

Competition and Finance offers a new, unified treatment of the fields of financial and monetary economics. The first part integrates recent developments in agency theory and information economics into a unified financial theory of the firm. A review of recent developments in the economics of banking and then monetary economics leads to a conclusion assessing present-day systems of central banking and proposing financial and monetary reform. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-37 Bilateral Financial Contracts....Pages 38-75 Capital Structure and Corporate Financial Policy....Pages 76-113 Why Financial Intermediaries Exist....Pages 114-120 Broker Intermediaries....Pages 121-129 Mutual-fund Intermediaries....Pages 130-139 Bank Intermediaries....Pages 140-194 The Structure of the Banking Industry....Pages 195-221 Recent Models of Banking Instability....Pages 222-240 Media of Exchange and Payment Systems....Pages 241-275 The Economics of the Unit of Account....Pages 276-291 The Mechanics of Convertibility....Pages 292-310 Monometallic, Bimetallic and Related Monetary Standards....Pages 311-336 Commodity-basket Monetary Standards....Pages 337-380 Price-level Optimality....Pages 381-445 Financial and Monetary Reform....Pages 446-475 Back Matter....Pages 476-572 This text provides a unified treatment of the fields of financial and monetary economics. Coverage includes: contract design; agency theory; financial intermediation; currency competition; gold and bimetallic standards; the economics of inflation; and systems of central banking and flat currency.