George Selgin

George Selgin (; born February 15, 1957) is an American economist. Before retiring in July 2025, he was a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, the founding Director of its Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, and editor-in-chief of that Center's online publication, Alt-M. He is also Professor Emeritus of economics at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia, an Honorary Professor at Francisco Marroquin University, and an associate editor of Econ Journal Watch. Selgin previously taught at George Mason University, the University of Hong Kong, and West Virginia University

Research

Selgin's research covers a broad range of topics within the field of monetary economics, including monetary history, macroeconomic theory, and the history of monetary thought. He is one of the founders, along with Kevin Dowd and Lawrence H. White, of the Modern Free Banking School, which draws its inspiration from the writings of Friedrich Hayek on denationalization of money and choice in currency. A central claim of the Free Banking School is that the effects of government intervention in monetary systems cannot be properly appreciated except with reference to a theory of monetary laissez-faire, analogous to the theory of free trade that informs the modern understanding of the effects of tariffs and other trade barriers. The free bankers argue that, viewed in light of such a theory, financial crises and business cycles are largely attributable to misguided government interference with freely-evolved and competitive monetary arrangements, including legislation granting central banks exclusive rights to issue paper currency.

Selgin is also known for his advocacy of a "productivity norm" for monetary policy—an ideal according to which the growth-rate of nominal gross domestic product should be such as will allow the (output) price level to decline along with goods' real (unit) costs of production—that is, at a rate opposite the growth rate of total factor productivity. According to Selgin, by preventing mild deflation in response to productivity gains, monetary authorities risk inadvertently fueling unsustainable booms or economic bubbles, setting the stage for consequent busts and recession. Because it requires that aggregate spending grow at a steady rate equal to the trend growth rate of weighted factor input growth, Selgin's ideal is a version of nominal income targeting. As such, it helped to inspire and supply theoretical support to the post-Great Recession movement favoring NGDP targeting.