Volume 15, No. 3 (Fall 2012)
An adaptive systems approach is used to compare a free banking system and a central banking regime with respect to their respective capacities to use and generate relevant knowledge. Monetary equilibrium, as a byproduct of a free banking system, has also been proposed as a norm for central bank policy. Differences in the way each system functions are found to cast doubt on that claim. The central problem identified is the difficulty of exporting results from one institutional setting (free banking)
to a qualitatively different one (central banking).
