Breve comentario en Sound Money Project sobre la no necesidad de un banco central para que haya prestamistas de «ultima instancia.»

Salvo que la intención sea tener un prestamista de última instancia que no distinga entre bancos solvente e insolvente, un mercado abierto a las finanzas internacionales ya tiene acceso a prestamistas si es que los bancos en cuestión merecen ser «salvados.»

Scotland’s vote for independence resulted in a negative. There won’t be, then, further discussions about what Scotland should do with its monetary institutions. Still, there is one more issue that I would like to discuss, because it transcends the particular case of Scotland, had independence been the result of the vote.

There is a widespread belief that a sound banking system requires a central bank to act as a lender of last resort. In a nutshell, the argument goes as follows: there are inherent potential instabilities in the banking system, to avoid a serious crisis and to interrupt means of payment, a central bank that is “external” to market forces should behave as a lender of last resort. There are two problems with this line of reasoning. First, it takes as given that the banking system is inherently unstable. This is not as obvious as it is sometimes believed. Second, to assume that to have a lender of “last resort” a central bank is needed.

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