A public banking option as a mode of regulation for household financial services in the US

The Politics of Democratizing Finance: A Radical View

“…21 Nearly 27 percent of the American population in 2015 was unbanked or underbanked and pushed into high-cost forms of borrowing to survive, such as payday loans, check cashing, money orders, pawnshops, international remittances, and auto loan titles. 22 Mehsra Baradaran proposes a public banking option situated in the US Postal Service (USPS), where there is already a working infrastructure in place. 23 There is a post office in every US zip code: 5.5 times the number of branches as Wells Fargo, the largest bank branch network.…”

Is a State Bank a Useful Economic Development Tool in the United States?

“…The two non-finance examples presented in section II.A highlighted the downward pressure on prices created by competition and networks. 5 5 A less optimistic view of the possible benefits of new technologies is taken by Baradaran (2014) and Herndon and Paul (2020), who favor relying on the infrastructure of the United States Postal System (USPS). While my "field research" is limited, I have visited four post offices in the last year.…”

A Classical-Keynes Model of Money and Finance for Transiting Economies

“…The discussion has taken a fresh turn in the context of central bank digital money according to which only the bank portion of lending would be afforded central bank protection through digital reserves while stock markets would be left laissez faire. In principle, never the twain shall meet although some have advised 'fighting the cold with the weapons of the cold', the public sector squaring up with the private sector (Herndon & Paul, 2020). Thus, without going as far as bank nationalisation, a public bank would be a public option offering consumers transaction services and credit and intermediaries an online platform on which public goods would compete with private goods.…”