The most common criticism of full-reserve banking, and by contrast, argument for fractional reserve banking, is the need for financial intermediation. Small savers often cannot lend or invest their meager savings, for want of knowledge and sufficient capital to make a loan. Likewise, without financial intermediaries, borrowers must seek out someone who can loan them the exact amount they need, instead of being able to draw on several loans from different small savers. Savers also face significant risk as individual investors, since if they lend to a single firm or individual, that entity can collapse, leaving the saver penniless. Furthermore, if they act as individual lenders, savers must wait for their loans to mature before recouping their money; a bank can make their deposits available at any time. There are also significant economies of scale in banks making investment and lending decisions, as they have access to knowledge and expertise which individual investors or lenders generally do not. Under full-reserve banking, a great deal of money would sit idle, as savers stored up their money, while entrepreneurs went without much-needed capital.[28]
Among criticisms of a full-reserve banking system is the argument that full-reserve banking implicitly means that there is no government-controlled "monetary policy" at all. Critics might also argue that a full-reserve system leaves us with an inelastic currency. Proponents would likely argue that the lack of a government-manipulated currency (the lack of a "monetary policy") and the presence of a sound currency (as opposed to an "elastic" one) are advantages to a full-reserve system. More subtly, since full-reserve banking means that during periods of high demand for money, the prices of other goods must fall, the broader real economy may bear adjustment costs that are (in principle) no different from those it would bear during periods of moderate inflation (that is, if the cost of adjusting to absolute prices is low or negligible, moderate inflation should be no more problematic than moderate deflation).[29] However, this subsequent deflationary effect is likely to have deleterious consequences if some prices are stickier than others; in particular, wages are often significantly stickier than other prices. Most economists, including prominent Austrian Murray Rothbard, believe that given wage stickiness, the adjustment costs of deflation are significantly higher than an equivalent inflation.[30]
Pascal Salin, former professor at the Université Paris-Dauphine and former Mont Pelerin Society president, opposes such regulation of banking and disputes Murray Rothbard's characterization of fractional-reserve banking as a simple form of recursive embezzlement. He argues that a situation of perfect certainty doesn't exist even in a full-reserve banking system. He also argues that in a perfectly free banking system any customer must be free to choose the kind of notes and the system of payments for services he prefers since optimality cannot be defined independent of the wants of the individual.[31]
Advocates of full-reserve banking do not necessarily advocate that the government lay down regulations stipulating a full-reserve system. In fact, some economists, such as Murray Rothbard (of the Austrian School) believe that government intervention sustains fractional-reserve banking, as governments have formalized the practice by making it legal and supporting it through the creation of central banks. Murray Rothbard argues that in doing this they have prevented periodic bank runs and other natural checks that would otherwise be placed on banks by astute customers, anti-fractional-reserve consumer groups, and other such organizations. Rothbard expresses this concern, and argues the case for 100% gold or silver-backed money, in his book What Has Government Done to Our Money? and other prominent published works.[32] Austrian monetary theorist George Selgin disputes the Rothbardian account, arguing: "Those self-styled Austrian economists, mostly followers of Murray Rothbard, who insist on its fraudulent nature or inherent instability are, frankly, making poor arguments. I don't think the evidence supports their view, and that they overlook overwhelming proof of the benefits that fractional reserve banking has brought in the way of economic development by fostering investment."[33]