VoxEU, September 27, 2023. HTML. From the conclusions: … it is critical to account for indirect in addition to direct social costs and benefits when ranking monetary architectures. … the costs and benefits we consider point to an important role of central bank digital currency in an optimal monetary architecture unless pass-through funding is necessary to stabilise capital investment and very costly. … the interest rate on CBDC should differ from zero and from the rate on reserves. From...
Read More »Central Bank Balance Sheets, LOLR Safety Nets, and Moral Hazard
Niall Ferguson, Martin Kornejew, Paul Schmelzing and Moritz Schularick in CEPR dp 17858: From the introduction: … time and again, central banks deployed their power to create liquidity in a bid to insulate economies from disasters. … first began to be linked to geopolitical tail events during the 17th and 18th centuries – occurring with increasing regularity during wars and revolutions –, … the context of central bank liquidity support gradually but consistently shifted...
Read More »On the Credibility of the ‘Credibility Revolution’
Kevin Lang argues in NBER wp 31666: When economists analyze a well-conducted RCT or natural experiment and find a statistically significant effect, they conclude the null of no effect is unlikely to be true. But how frequently is this conclusion warranted? The answer depends on the proportion of tested nulls that are true and the power of the tests. I model the distribution of t-statistics in leading economics journals. Using my preferred model, 65% of narrowly rejected null hypotheses...
Read More »Conference on “The Future of Payments and Digital Assets,” Bocconi/CEPR, 2023
Conference jointly organized by Bocconi’s Algorand FinTech Lab and CEPR’s RPN FinTech & Digital Currencies. Keynotes by Hyun Song Shin and Xavier Vives. Organized by Claudio Tebaldi and Dirk Niepelt. CEPR’s conference website with program. Bocconi’s website with videos and more.
Read More »“Macroeconomics II,” Bern, Fall 2023
MA course at the University of Bern. Time: Monday 10:15-12:00. Location: A-126 UniS. Uni Bern’s official course page. Course assistant: Stefano Corbellini. 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...
Read More »“Makroökonomie I (Macroeconomics I),” Bern, Fall 2023
BA course at the University of Bern, taught in German. Time: Monday 14:15-16:00. Location: Audimax. Uni Bern’s official course page. Course assistant: Wjera Yell Leutenegger. 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...
Read More »“Money and Banking with Reserves and CBDC,” CEPR, 2023
CEPR Discussion Paper 18444, September 2023. HTML (local copy). Abstract: We analyze the role of retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) and reserves when banks exert deposit market power and liquidity transformation entails externalities. Optimal monetary architecture minimizes the social costs of liquidity provision and optimal monetary policy follows modified Friedman (1969) rules. Interest rates on reserves and CBDC should differ. Calibrations robustly suggest that CBDC provides...
Read More »Tenochtitlan
The Aztec capital reconstructed by Thomas Kole and collaborators:
Read More »Report of the Banking Stability Expert Group
The “Banking Stability” Expert Group that was formed following the failure of Credit Suisse has published its report (in German). I quote and add my own comments in brackets […]. Summary: Die staatlich unterstützte Übernahme der Credit Suisse durch die UBS im März 2023 hat eine gefährliche Situation schnell stabilisiert. Die Schweiz hat damit einen wichtigen Beitrag zur internationalen Finanzstabilität geleistet. Die Credit Suisse war am 19. März 2023 die erste global systemrelevante Bank...
Read More »“Why the Digital Euro Might be Dead on Arrival,” VoxEU, 2023
With Cyril Monnet. VoxEU, August 10, 2023. HTML. … promoting the digital euro requires an aggressive marketing strategy because private incentives for adoption are limited. However, the pursuit of such an aggressive approach is unlikely as this runs counter to the ECB’s fourth, implicit objective of protecting banks’ existing business model. This is problematic and could turn the project into a significant missed opportunity, for the potential social benefits of the digital euro...
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