Peter Bernholz Livres

This book explores the characteristics of inflations, comparing historical cases from Roman times up to the modern day. High and moderate inflations caused by the inflationary bias of political systems and economic relationships - and the importance of different monetary regimes in containing them - are analysed. Peter Bernholz demonstrates that certain macroeconomic traits have been stable characteristics of inflations over the centuries, and illustrates their causes: the development of real stock of money, real exchange rate, real budget deficit and of currency substitution. He goes on to explain that metallic monetary regimes allow substantial inflations by debasement - 4th century Roman Empire experiencing the highest of them - but are dwarfed by the experience of hyperinflations. These occurred only under discretionary paper money regimes. To demonstrate this and their characteristics, all twenty-nine hyperinflations are studied.

Applying a rational choice perspective, this book presents a dynamic theory of the evolution of totalitarian regimes and terrorism. By demonstrating that totalitarian regimes rest on ideologies involving supreme values that are assumed to be absolutely true, the author identifies the factors that lead to totalitarian regimes, and those that transform or abolish those regimes with time. The author addresses different ideologies, such as National Socialism, Communism, and religious movements; examines numerous historical cases of totalitarian regimes; and develops a formal, mathematical model of totalitarianism in the book’s closing chapter. 

This volume confronts an important historical hypothesis with empirical evidence from selected periods of history. The hypothesis in question states that competition among political and legal organisations in developing rules has been a crucial condition for liberty, innovation and growth in the history of mankind. It is due to Immanuel Kant, Edward Gibbon and Max Weber and has been revived and further developed by Nobel-Laureate Douglass C. North who contributes the first chapter. The volume brings together political economists, historians and legal scholars to discuss the role of political competition in the rise and decline of nations - both in theory and in a large number of case studies.

InhaltsverzeichnisInhalt: K. E. Born, Erfahrungen aus internationalen Finanzkrisen der Vergangenheit - K. Häuser, Kriterien zur Analyse internationaler Verschuldung und Keynes' Prognose der deutschen Schuldenkrise - P. Bernholz, Zur argentinischen Schuldenkrise 1890-1900 - W. Rieke, Ansätze zur Lösung der Schuldenkrise - H. C. Wallich, The International Debt Situation in an American View: Borrowing Countries and Lending Banks - O. Emminger, Die internationale Schuldenkrise und die Banken - E.-M. Claassen, Die Funktion des Kreditgebers der letzten Instanz bei nationalen und internationalen Finanzkrisen - V. Timmermann, Internationale Finanzintermediation und Auslandsverschuldung - D. Duwendag, Kapitalflucht aus Entwicklungsländern: Schätzprobleme und Bestimmungsfaktoren - J. Niehans, Internationale Kredite mit undurchsetzbaren Forderungen