Dirk Niepelt

A new report by the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures lists 7 types of frictions and 19 focus areas to address these frictions.

In its annual economic report, the BIS further warms to the idea that CBDC is a key part of central banks’ response to financial innovation. Central banks play a pivotal role in maintaining the safety and integrity of the payment system. They provide the solid foundation by acting as guardians of the stability of money and payments. The pandemic and resulting strain on economic activity around the world have confirmed the importance of central banks in payments. Digital innovation is...

On Alphaville, Claire Jones and Izabella Kaminska discuss privacy issues related to CBDC. In the background, Kocherlakota’s “Money is Memory” is lurking.

VoxEU, June 22, 2020. HTML. Is macroeconomics useful? Of course. To make the point, academics must regain the interpretative high ground from market commentators. While it helps when policymakers understand fundamental macroeconomic concepts, it is equally important for the general public to grasp them. More, and how this relates to the new textbook, on VoxEU.

Stonehenge is tiny. Dalya Alberge reports in the Guardian.

Quality, not subject or object, as the elementary fabric. ἀρετή. A rehabilitation of the sophists. Some quotes: If the purpose of scientific method is to select from among a multitude of hypotheses, and if the number of hypotheses grows faster than experimental method can handle, then it is clear that all hypotheses can never be tested. If all hypotheses cannot be tested, then the results of any experiment are inconclusive and the entire scientific method falls short of its goal of...

Discussion of Antonio Fatás’ chapter in Elena Carletti, Stijn Claessens, Antonio Fatás, Xavier Vives, The Bank Business Model in the Post-Covid-19 World, CEPR/IESE report, London, June 2020. PDF. Antonio’s chapter offers a rich overview of the dramatic changes in the world of money and banking that we have seen in recent years. I focus on two themes: the nature of money and how it relates to these developments, and the government’s response to the structural changes we observe. I...

By Koen Swinkels, on Medium, a database and preliminary interpretation subject to various caveats. The preliminary suggested interpretation is as follows: Nearly all SSEs in the database — more than 97% — took place indoors The great majority of SSEs happened during flu season in that location The vast majority took place in settings where people were essentially confined together, indoors, for a prolonged period (for example, nursing homes, prisons, cruise ships, worker housing)...

On his blog, John Cochrane comments on Harald Uhlig’s tweets and the reaction by Janet Yellen (AEA), other established economists, the Chicago Fed, and the JPE. In the comments, one person provides additional information and another links to the list of signatories.

This lecture series is about "Digital Money and Central Bank Digital Currency" with Dr. Prof. Dirk Niepelt, Director of Study Centre Gerzensee, Foundation of the Swiss National Bank. Associate Professor University Bern. About Central banks already issue digital money, but only to a select group of financial institutions. Central bank digital currency would extend this to households and firms. This column examines the proposal for such currency and assesses the opportunities and...