do." Advantages According to economist Michael D. Bordo, the gold standard has three benefits: "its record as a stable nominal anchor; its automaticity; and its role as a credible commitment mechanism." A gold standard does not allow some types of financial repression. Financial repression acts as a mechanism to transfer wealth from creditors to debtors, particularly the governments that practice it. Financial repression is most successful in reducing debt when accompanied by inflation and can be considered a form of taxation. In 1966 Alan Greenspan wrote "Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Long-term price stability has been described as one of the virtues of the gold standard, but historical data shows that the magnitude of short run swings in prices were far higher under the gold standard. Currency crises were less frequent under the gold standard than in periods without the gold standard. However, banking crises were more frequent. The gold standard provides fixed international exchange rates between participating countries and thus reduces uncertainty in international trade. Historically, imbalances between price levels were offset by a balance-of-payment adjustment mechanism called the "price–specie flow mechanism". Gold used to pay for imports reduces the money supply of importing nations, causing deflation, which makes them more competitive, while the importation of gold by net exporters serves to increase their money supply, causing inflation, making them less competitive. Hyper-inflation, a common correlator with government overthrows and economic failures, is more difficult when a gold standard exists. This is because hyper-inflation, by definition, is a loss in trust of failing fiat and those governments that create the fiat. Disadvantages The unequal distribution of gold deposits makes the gold standard more advantageous for those countries that produce gold. In 2010 the largest producers of gold, in order, were China, Australia, the U.S., South Africa, and Russia. The country with the largest unmined gold deposits is Australia. Some economists believe that the gold standard acts as a limit on economic growth. According to David Mayer, "As an economy's productive capacity grows, then so should its money supply. Because a gold standard requires that money be backed in the metal, then the scarcity of the metal constrains the ability