Many analysts have characterized Argentina’s four years under the Law of National Guaranteed Banks as a period of “free banking,” which suggests—incorrectly—that the financial crisis of 1890 was a failure of free banking. In reality, that law regulated banks and encouraged them to become less solvent.

Nicolás Cachanosky is associate professor in the Department of Economics at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Banking and FinanceDefense and Foreign PolicyEconomic History and DevelopmentEconomyFiscal Policy/DebtFree Market EconomicsGovernment and PoliticsInternational Economics and DevelopmentLatin AmericaPublic ChoiceTaxes
Other Independent Review articles by Nicolás Cachanosky
Summer 2022 Monetary Disorder in Buenos Aires Province, 1822–1881
Fall 2019 Latin American Populism in the Twenty-First Century
Winter 2017/18 Money: Free and Unfree
[View All (5)]