Dirk Niepelt

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...

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 risks. It...

VoxEU, June 5, 2020, with Martin Gonzalez-Eiras. HTML. A comparison of epidemiological models for use in economic analyses, based on the CEPR discussion paper.

International Journal of Central Banking. PDF. This paper offers a macroeconomic perspective on the “Reserves for All” (RFA) proposal to let the general public hold electronic central bank money and transact with it. I propose an equivalence result according to which a marginal substitution of outside money (e.g., RFA) for inside money (e.g., deposits) does not affect macroeconomic outcomes. I identify key conditions for equivalence and argue that these conditions likely are...

FAS, 31 May 2020. PDF. Monetary deficit financing is the norm—after all, central banks distribute their profits. Monetary financing occurs in the context of regular open market operations and QE and, hyper charged, with helicopter drops. The question is not whether monetary policy should finance the government, but why it does so, and to what extent. Fiscal and monetary policy are inherently connected; what constitutes monetary policy is defined by objectives.

On the SNB website, Lukas Heim and Christoph Kappeler explain the integration of the financial account, the international investment position and the Swiss financial accounts.