Sunday, October 15, 2017

Brian Romanchuk — Should We Care About Seigneurage?

I believe I have a better understanding of Eric Lonergan's arguments regarding whether fiat money is a liability of a state with currency sovereignty. (This discussion does not apply to commodity money, or a state using a money issued by an entity not under its direct control.) If I am correct, I would phrase his argument as: the existing accounting treatment of money is incorrect, since it does not account for seigneurage revenue. (Seigneurage has multiple English spellings; I was using the French spelling on Twitter -- seigneuriage.)...
Bond Economics
Should We Care About Seigneurage?
Brian Romanchuk

1 comment:

Calgacus said...

The "definition" that Brian R uses there is circular - the kind that Molière would have fun with - and is not the creditary/MMT definition. The Oresme to Menger commodity theory line of thought at least understands the problem, unlike such attempts, which are like a horse's blinkers, basically just a way to concentrate on other things (as does Lonergan, as far as my blinkered vision can see). Distinctions between "liability" & "debt" & "promise" etc are another - I recall a comment by Stephanie Kelton when Dan Kervick started to stray by making such distracting distinctions: 'Aren't liability & debt synonyms?'. Fine if that's what one wants to do ... but there are other things to do, which IMHO are more central.