He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Theory of Free Banking (Rowman & Littlefield, 1988); Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage (University of Michigan Press, 2008); Money: Free & Unfree (Cato Institute, 2017); Less Than Zero: The Case for a Falling Price Level in a Growing Economy (Cato Institute, 2018), Floored! How a Misguided Fed Experiment Deepened and Prolonged the Great Recession (Cato Institute, 2018), and The Menace of Fiscal QE (Cato Institute, 2020).
Selgin is one of the founders, with Kevin Dowd and Lawrence H. White, of the Modern Free Banking School, which draws its inspiration from the writings of F. A. Hayek on denationalization of money and choice in currency. Selgin has written for numerous scholarly journals, including the British Numismatic Journal; the Economic Journal; the Economic History Review; the Journal of Economic Literature; and the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking; and for popular outlets such as the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among others.
Selgin holds a BA in economics and zoology from Drew University and a PhD in economics from New York University.