BA course at the University of Bern, taught in German.
Time: Monday 14:15-16:00. Location: H4 201. Course assistant: Sally Dubach.
Course description:
Die Vorlesung vermittelt einen ersten Einblick in die moderne Makroökonomie. Sie baut auf der Veranstaltung „Einführung in die Makroökonomie“ des Einführungsstudiums auf und betont sowohl die Mikrofundierung als auch dynamische Aspekte. Das heisst, sie interpretiert makroökonomische Entwicklungen als das Ergebnis zielgerichteten individuellen (mikroökonomischen) Handelns, und sie wird der Tatsache gerecht, dass wirtschaftliche Entscheidungen Erwartungen widerspiegeln und Konsequenzen in der Zukunft haben. Der klassische Modellrahmen, der in der Vorlesung entwickelt wird, bietet die Grundlage für die Analyse von Wachstum, Konsum,

MA course at the University of Bern.
Time: Monday 10:15-12:00. Location: UniS A-122. Course assistant: Noah Köhli.
The course introduces Master students to modern macroeconomic theory. Building on the analysis of the consumption-saving tradeoff and on concepts from general equilibrium theory, the course covers workhorse general equilibrium models of modern macroeconomics, including the representative agent framework, the overlapping generations model, and the Lucas tree model.
Lectures follow chapters 1–4 (possibly 5) in this book.

My interview with Claudia Gnehm, published in Tamedia outlets, together with the accompanying article in Finanz und Wirtschaft, generated many responses from readers. Here are the comments that received the most support from other readers:
Most-liked comments on interview:

#1 Dirk Niepelt betont in diesem wohltuend klaren Artikel, dass das Verursacherprinzip als Richtschnur auch und gerade für Banken und für die UBS gilt.
Es kann nicht sein, dass sich eine systemrelevante Bank sehr spekulativen Geschäften hingibt, die naturgemäss einen weit höheren Ertrag geben können, und dass der Steuerzahler und der Staat im Notfall für die Verluste einstehen muss.
Es darf nicht sein, dass die Gewinne privatisiert, dass das Management ohne substanzielle Verantwortung agiert und der Staat sich in

Finanz und Wirtschaft online. 10 August 2026. PDF of online article. Also published in print on 12 August 2026; PDF.

“Ob Bäcker oder Grossbank – wer Gewinne erzielt, muss im Krisenfall auch Verluste tragen,” (Whether Bakery or Global Bank: Those Who Earn the Profits Must Also Bear the Losses). Interview published in Tagesanzeiger online, Der Bund online, Berner Zeitung online, Basler Zeitung online, and elsewhere. 7 August 2026. PDF of hardcopy.

After leaving office, many central bank governors and senior central bank policymakers tend to become more vocal in questioning the dominant role of commercial bank money in providing liquidity to households and firms. Consider, for example, Mervyn King’s 2016 book The End of Alchemy or Andy Haldane’s June 2021 speech. Stefan Ingves, until recently Governor of the Riksbank, provides another example. SUERF Policy Brief 1507 summarizes his remarks at a recent SUERF event as follows:
His framing was emphatically political, not just economic: how much oligopoly power should banks have, and should the central bank’s role change merely because technology does? His own view: money is part of how a nation defines itself; the process should speed up; CBDCs will not threaten banks; and without a

On VoxEU, Peter Howitt describes Ned Phelps’ lasting influence on modern macroeconomics.
Much of modern macroeconomics was shaped by Edmund S. Phelps, who died this May. Ned’s pioneering efforts in developing a formal theory of the coordination mechanisms governing economic interactions led the way to a new kind of macroeconomics, one that was based on the interplay between the actions and expectations of individual actors, instead of being based on postulated relationships between macro aggregates.

In his Financial Times Free Lunch column, Martin Sandbu discusses our recent Barcelona report (with Stephen Cecchetti, Hélène Rey, and Xavier Vives).
He writes: “The introduction is as good a guide to the main policy issues as I have seen. In particular, it helpfully directs our focus not so much to the technical possibilities digitisation brings as to what they mean for who is empowered and enriched by the systemic changes that can follow…”
Martin continues: “It gives a nuanced discussion of how a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) can be designed to improve longstanding problems with the current system. And it does a good job of surveying both the risks and the opportunities of ‘tokenisation’ — the representation of claims by digital ‘tokens’ that can circulate through

In two Watson articles, Lara Knuchel summarizes the views of Swiss finance professors on the proposed tightening of UBS’s equity requirements, noting that only a small fraction of scholars affiliated with the Swiss Finance Institute responded to her inquiry.
The former article also provides background on the Swiss regulatory debate.

CEPR eBook, with Stephen Cecchetti, Hélène Rey, Xavier Vives. 2 June 2026. PDF, HTML.

Column: New Coins on the Block: Digital Currencies and the Financial System (with Stephen Cecchetti, Hélène Rey, and Xavier Vives). VoxEU, June 2, 2026. HTML.
The crypto system is no longer a sideshow. Dollar stablecoins now put dollar claims into circulation well beyond the regulated US banking perimeter, and cryptoisation is beginning to transform the international monetary and financial system. This column argues that the changes crypto sets in motion will be shaped by institutions and technological innovation. Who issues money, who anchors it, and who bears the cost when things go wrong are central issues. But as money migrates onto programmable, cross-border rails, the resilience of the rail

With Remo Isch-Taudien and Cyril Monnet. Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics 162:7, May 2025. PDF. Journal website.

The proposed revision of the Swiss Banking Act introduces a public liquidity backstop (PLB) for distressed systemically important banks (SIBs), in part to facilitate resolution. We examine the impact of the PLB on fiscal balances, welfare, and the incentives of bank shareholders and management. A PLB, like too-big-to-fail (TBTF) status, acts as a subsidy for non-convertible bonds, which can create negative externalities. Corrective measures should be implemented before the PLB is activated to align incentives with societal interests. We conservatively estimate that UBS Group’s TBTF status results in funding cost reductions of at least USD 2.9 billion in 2022. The

CEPR webinar, April 2026. Youtube.
With a legislative vote on the digital euro approaching, the debate around its design and implications is entering a critical phase. This webinar will take stock of where the current proposal stands, unpacking key features, open questions, and points of contention. Join us to better understand what is at stake as Europe moves closer to a potential digital currency rollout.
Join our panel of speakers – Isabelle Mateos y Lago (BNP Paribas), Lucrezia Reichlin (London Business School & CEPR), Jean-Pierre Landau (Sciences Po and CEPR), Harald Uhlig (University of Chicago & CEPR) and Éric Monnet (EHESS, PSE & CEPR) – along with moderator Dirk Niepelt (University of Bern & CEPR), for a discussion on this timely topic.

With Alistair Milne and David Skeie. CEPR Discussion Paper 21448, May 2026. PDF.

We assess retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) against the objective of the uniformity of money. The central questions that arise are whether CBDC could help support the uniformity of money across public and private monies in day-to-day payments; how it interacts with the unit of account and monetary sovereignty; and how its design choices impact its contribution.

Central Banking, March 25, 2026. HTML. Interview text:
1. A number of central banks are currently working on introducing retail CBDC. In your view, what are the risks they most frequently overlook?
One risk is losing sight of the bigger picture. Retail CBDC is not merely a technological innovation that may or may not help respond efficiently to structural change in the payment system. It can also serve as a tool for broader reform of the monetary architecture. The overarching objective should be to provide liquidity to Main Street at minimum social cost, and the debate about retail CBDC should focus on whether it can help achieve that goal. Instead, the discussion often centers on secondary objectives and insufficiently questions the status quo.
2. The ECB, for example, argues that

VoxEU, March 6, 2026. HTML.
Ultimately, the macroeconomic significance of CBDC is shaped by policy choices, and political economy determines whether CBDC becomes a significant factor. To understand CBDC policy, don’t just think macro — think political economy.

Annual returns and cumulative returns: Triangle. Some aggregate statistics: Text. The average (geometric mean) real annual return on equity in the period 1926–2024 is 5.6%. Statistics are based on SPI and BfS consumer price index data.

BA course at the University of Bern.
Time: Monday, 10:15–12:00. Location: H4, 105.
This course is aimed at students interested in macro finance who have completed their mandatory training in microeconomics, macroeconomics, and mathematics. Macro finance focuses on the pricing of securities and other assets. Building on the Euler equation, we derive the fundamental pricing relationships. The course then explores a range of applications, including bubbles, government debt, money, the interaction between fiscal and monetary policy, CBDCs, and crypto assets. Grades are based on class participation, group work and presentations, and/or a written exam.

MA course at the University of Bern.
Lecture: Monday, 12.15 – 14.00, UniS A027.Sessions with TA Noah Köhli. Problem sets and solutions will be distributed by the TA.
The course covers macroeconomic theories of fiscal policy (including tax and debt policy) and the interaction between fiscal and monetary policy. Participants should be familiar with the material covered in the course Macroeconomics II. The course grade reflects the final exam grade. The classes follow selected chapters in the textbook Macroeconomic Analysis (MIT Press, 2019) and build on the material covered in the Macroeconomics II course, which follows the same text.
Main contents:

Concepts.
RA model with government spending and taxes.
Government debt in RA model.
Government debt and social security in OLG model.

CEPR Discussion Paper 21141, February 2026. PDF.

We review the macroeconomic literature on retail central bank digital currency (CBDC), organizing the discussion around a CBDC-irrelevance result. We identify both fundamental and policy-related sources of relevance, or departures from neutrality. Bank disintermediation—the crowding out of deposits—does not, by itself, constitute such a source. We argue that the literature has primarily focused on policy-related sources of non-neutrality, often without making this focus explicit. From a macroeconomic perspective, CBDC is, at its core, a matter of monetary architecture, and political economy considerations are central to understanding CBDC policy design.

CEPR eBook, 12 November 2025. PDF, HTML.

A new report by the Institut für Schweizer Wirtschaftspolitik describes who receives them. Report (in German).

CEPR eBook, 12 November 2025. PDF, HTML.
VoxEU column: Frontiers of Digital Finance: A Global Perspective. HTML.
VoxEU column: Frontiers of Digital Finance: Stablecoins, monetary ‘singleness’, tokenisation, and decentralised finance. HTML.

My introduction to/summary of the book:
The digitisation of payment, trading, and settlement systems is reshaping the financial architecture. New technologies are transforming how value is created, stored, transferred, and accounted for, altering the balance between public and private money, enabling the bundling of services, challenging traditional financial institutions, and prompting a wave of regulatory and institutional responses.
The global picture is uneven. Some regions are leapfrogging others, and conflicting ideologies about the proper

UniBe VWI Discussion Paper 25-09, October 2025. PDF.
We review the macroeconomic literature on retail central bank digital currency (CBDC), organizing the discussion around a CBDC-irrelevance result. We identify both fundamental and policy-related sources of relevance, or departures from neutrality. Bank disintermediation—the crowding out of deposits—does not, by itself, constitute such a source. We argue that the literature has primarily focused on policy-related sources of non-neutrality, often without making this focus explicit. From a macroeconomic perspective, CBDC is, at its core, a matter of monetary architecture, and political economy considerations are central to understanding CBDC policy design.

Simon Grimm offers answers. They also shed light on why the Swiss—and many non-Swiss residents—enjoy such a high level of happiness.
… banking and insurance make up only 9% of its GDP. …
Neutrality and institutional stability surely explain part of Switzerland’s long-run growth. But there is another axis along which Switzerland differs from most of Europe: its economic governance is far more liberal.

MA course at the University of Bern.
Time: Monday 10:15-12:00. Location: UniS A-126. Uni Bern’s official course page. Course assistant: Noah Köhli.
The course introduces Master students to modern macroeconomic theory. Building on the analysis of the consumption-saving tradeoff and on concepts from general equilibrium theory, the course covers workhorse general equilibrium models of modern macroeconomics, including the representative agent framework, the overlapping generations model, and the Lucas tree model.
Lectures follow chapters 1–4 (possibly 5) in this book.

BA course at the University of Bern, taught in German.
Time: Monday 14:15-16:00. Location: H4 201. Uni Bern’s official course page. Course assistant: Sally Dubach.
Course description:
Die Vorlesung vermittelt einen ersten Einblick in die moderne Makroökonomie. Sie baut auf der Veranstaltung „Einführung in die Makroökonomie“ des Einführungsstudiums auf und betont sowohl die Mikrofundierung als auch dynamische Aspekte. Das heisst, sie interpretiert makroökonomische Entwicklungen als das Ergebnis zielgerichteten individuellen (mikroökonomischen) Handelns, und sie wird der Tatsache gerecht, dass wirtschaftliche Entscheidungen Erwartungen widerspiegeln und Konsequenzen in der Zukunft haben. Der klassische Modellrahmen, der in der Vorlesung entwickelt wird, bietet die Grundlage für die

With Martín Gonzalez-Eiras. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 178, 105145. September 2025. PDF, PDF of appendices C, D, E.
We develop a single-state model of epidemic control and equilibrium dynamics, and we show that its simplicity comes at very low cost during the early phase of an epidemic. Novel analytical results concern the continuity of the policy function; the reversal from lockdown to stimulus policies; and the relaxation of optimal lockdowns when testing is feasible. The model’s enhanced computational efficiency over SIR-based frameworks allows for the quantitative assessment of various new scenarios and specifications. Calibrated to reflect the COVID-19 pandemic, the model predicts an optimal initial activity reduction of 38 percent, with subsequent stimulus measures

VoxEU, June 30, 2025. With Cyril Monnet and Remo Taudien. HTML.
From the text:
To judge the incentive effects of a public liquidity backstop framework, ideally one would assess its contribution to the overall too-big-to-fail subsidy. However, isolating this contribution is empirically challenging. To estimate the broader too-big-to-fail subsidy, we conduct a quantitative analysis based on the industry-standard CreditGrades framework (Merton 1974, Finkelstein et al. 2002). Using publicly available data for 2022 and applying conservative assumptions about recovery rates and asset volatility, we estimate that UBS Group AG benefited from an annual senior debt subsidy of approximately $2.9 billion–somewhat below the range reported in comparable studies.
This finding underscores the need for

With Cyril Monnet and Remo Taudien. CEPR Discussion Paper 20309, May 2025. PDF.
The proposed revision of the Swiss Banking Act introduces a public liquidity backstop (PLB) for distressed systemically important banks (SIBs), in part to facilitate resolution. We examine the impact of the PLB on fiscal balances, welfare, and the incentives of bank shareholders and management. A PLB, like too-big-to-fail (TBTF) status, acts as a subsidy for non-convertible bonds, which can create negative externalities. Corrective measures should be implemented before the PLB is activated to align incentives with societal interests. We conservatively estimate that UBS Group’s TBTF status results in funding cost reductions of at least USD 2.9 billion in 2022. The risk for Switzerland of hosting SIBs

Skip to content

πάντα ῥεῖ

Menu

Recent Posts

Former Central Bankers on Private vs. Public Money Creation

Howitt on Phelps and Modern Macroeconomics

Financial Times, Free Lunch

Swiss Finance Professors on ‘Lex UBS’

“Digital Money—Barcelona Report 8,” CEPR, 2026

“Pricing Liquidity Support: A PLB for Switzerland”, SJES, 2026

Digital Euro Webinar with Jean-Pierre Landau, Isabelle Mateos y Lago, Eric Monnet, Lucrezia Reichlin, Harald Uhlig, 2026

“Money Uniformity and Retail CBDC,” CEPR, 2026