Scottish Banking and the Legal Restrictions Theory: A Closer Look: Comment
评论了Cowen和Kroszner对苏格兰银行业作为自由银行体系证据的质疑，指出他们提出的三项偏离自由放任的例证不足以否定苏格兰经验对法律限制理论的挑战。
The use of Scottish banling experience as counterevidence to legal restrictions theory of money (White 1987) rests on view that Scottish system, before Bank Charter Act of 1844 closed entry into note-issue,l warranted its traditional characterlzation as free banking. That is, regulatory regime approximated closely enough that its institutions, practices, and performance were basically those of an unregulated free-market monetary system. This interpretation of Scottish banking has been challenged by Tyler Cowen and Randall Kroszner (1989). Wishing to defend legal restrictions theory, whose vision of a payments system does not coincide with Scottish experience, they argue that Scottish regime did not closely enough approximate to provide evidence damaging to legal restrictions theory. They cite three prlncipal deviations from laissez-faire (p. 222): (1) Act of 1765 impediments to interest-bearing notes and proscribed small denomination notes; (2) the prevailing system of liability and incorporation raised barriers to entry into banking; and (3) the Bank of England acted as a shadow central bank for Scotland. Cowen and Kroszner [hereafter CK] thus charactertze Scottish system as legally restricted from paying interest on circulating media, as less than competitive, and as dependent upon Bank of England.