White earned his AB at Harvard University (1977) and PhD at the University of California at Los Angeles (1982). Before his current role at George Mason University he held a position as F.A. Hayek Professor of Economic History with the University of Missouri—St. Louis Economics department. He held this position from August 2000 to August 2009 and taught classes on American Economic History, Monetary Theory, and Money and Banking. Previously, he was Assistant Professor at New York University and Associate Professor at The University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.

He is noted for contributing to the body of thought known as the Austrian School. He has analyzed the theory and history of free banking, a system under which commercial banks and market forces control the provision of banking services.

White's analysis of competitive currency issue in Scotland implies that modern banking systems could function without a central bank, for example the Federal Reserve system of the United States.

The Theory of Monetary Institutions

White's most recent book, The Theory of Monetary Institutions, lays out in detail a graduate course in monetary theory. This analysis, in the tradition of Walter Bagehot's Lombard Street, starts by outlining specific assumptions of Monetary Theory. For example, it considers 5 characteristic roles of a central bank and examines which roles have been provided by the private market during the course of history. The later part of the book talks about the many issues which have been raised by government participation in the banking industry.