History
Demurrage-charged local currency was successfully tested in the Austrian town of Wörgl between 1932 and 1934, until the Austrian central bank stopped the experiment. Local scrip systems, many of which incorporated demurrage fees, were also used across the United States during the Great Depression, and the Bankhead–Pettengill bill of 17 February 1933 was introduced in Congress to institutionalize such a system at the national level under the US Treasury, as documented in Irving Fisher's book Stamp Scrip. Bernard Lietaer also documents in his book Mysterium Geld the use of demurrage currency systems in Europe's High Middle Ages' bracteate systems and ancient Egypt's ostraka – dated receipts for the storage of grain – and credits these currency systems with the great prosperity of these societies.
The major central banks' post-WWII policy of steady monetary inflation as proposed by Keynes was influenced by Gesell's idea of demurrage on currency, but used inflation of the money supply rather than fees to effect the goal of increasing the velocity of money and expanding the economy.
Read more about this topic: Demurrage (currency)
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