Dirk Niepelt

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.