What are you currently researching?
My research focuses on the history of money and the development of its legal status from ancient times to the present.
How did you become involved in your research field?
The high inflation in 1980s Israel and in 1920s Germany, and the detrimental effects that followed, motivated me to study money and the ways the government can manipulate it.
What inspired you to become a researcher?
My clinical work as an SLP raises many theoretical questions, which I believe are important to explore. My research on the other hand, shapes my clinical approach. The importance of the theoretical as well as the clinical implications of my research inspires me to continue my exploration and to expand it to other, related, theoretical questions and to other populations.
Which of your research findings would you like to highlight?,/span>
I agree with the view that modern state money circulates, without any backing by gold, because it is legal tender for tax payments. In my earlier work, I formulated this mechanism in a mathematical model to examine its potential and limitation. In more recent work, I explained the origins of such tax-backed money in seventeenth century English America, as the combination of peculiar circumstances that affected the need for such an invention and the ability to make such an invention.
How does your research link to todays' challenges?
My work explains how governments can maintain their currency circulating even while initiating high inflation. The return of high inflation to the West in 2021, after four decades, makes this research relevant. My work also explains why crypto “currencies” – which have no legal tender status – miserably fail in their hyped bid to actually perform the role of currency. Even with all their trillions of dollars of value in speculative financial markets, almost nobody buys goods and services with them.
What excites you regarding your research field?
The history of money features both constant innovation and great variety across time and space, but also repeating themes that are as true today as they were thousands of years ago.