Return to a gold standard neither practical nor desirable

The historical experience of the gold standard is that countries often saw periodic declines in their gold stocks, which triggered either a corresponding contraction in money or a hike in interest rates to encourage capital to flow back. Either would then cause a corresponding contraction in nominal GDP. The upshot is that even if a new gold commission was created, we suspect it would come to the conclusion that adopting a gold standard is no longer practical or desirable.