Russian-born British economist Abba Lerner, in 1943, had advocated that the central bank could start "printing money" to match government deficit-spending "sufficient to achieve and sustain full employment.

[13] In 2016, The Economist commented that the Sovereign Money Initiative "system would be safer for depositors" but that "a huge part of the Swiss economy, would be turned inside-out, with unpredictable but probably expensive consequences.

"[2][1][8] The specific initiative in Switzerland was part of the so-called "International Movement for Monetary Reform," created by the lobbying organisation Positive Money in 2013.

[4] In March 1933, economists from the University of Chicago circulated a six-page memorandum with a proposal to "radically"[22] change the structure of the American financial system.

The proposal in Switzerland to reform the ability of private banks to create money is based[23] on a theory of American economist Irving Fisher[24] from the 1930s.

Frosti Sigurjónsson, economist and MP, published his findings and recommendations the same year,[30] in which the abolition of fractional banking, among other things, was proposed.

[31][32] Economist Bill Mitchell criticized the Icelandic scheme, on the grounds that, as he stated, even if implemented, "essentially the money supply would still be endogenous," unless the country's central bank would be willing to "tolerate the interest rate going beyond its control" or witness "a lack of funds available for borrowing."

"[33] The same year, the “Ons Geld” ("Our Money") organization that supports "sovereign monetary reform" in the Netherlands mounted a citizen's initiative[34] that resulted in parliamentary debate and the decision to have the government think tank Scientific Council for Government Policy study the proposal to have fractional banking outlawed and “money creation returned to public hands”.