by Summary:
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 16, 2016. PDF, HTML. Ökonomenstimme, June 17, 2016. HTML. Vollgeld seems attractive because it decouples the supply of money from intermediation. By enabling everyone to use legal tender for electronic payments, electronic base money would satisfy a need. Vollgeld would prevent bank runs, at least partly; render deposit insurance unnecessary and reduce moral hazard; could help stabilize the credit cycle; and would redistribute seignorage to the central bank. But these objectives can be obtained with less intrusive means. Moreover, a Vollgeld system would be hard to enforce. Banks and their clients would establish new means of payment to circumvent the regulation. And in times of crisis, the central bank would feel obliged to provide liquidity assistance and bail outs. The central problem is not that private money is used for transactions; it rather is that the money’s users rely on the central bank to guarantee the substitutability of private money and base money. In a democracy, the central bank cannot credibly let large parts of the payment system go under. A sudden, forceful change of regime does not offer a credible way out of this trap.
Topics:
Dirk Niepelt considers the following as important: *, Bailout, bank run, base money, Contributions, Credibility, Enforcement, Guarantee, Liquidity, Means of payment, Reserves, Seignorage, Vollgeld
This could be interesting, too:
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 16, 2016. PDF, HTML. Ökonomenstimme, June 17, 2016. HTML. Vollgeld seems attractive because it decouples the supply of money from intermediation. By enabling everyone to use legal tender for electronic payments, electronic base money would satisfy a need. Vollgeld would prevent bank runs, at least partly; render deposit insurance unnecessary and reduce moral hazard; could help stabilize the credit cycle; and would redistribute seignorage to the central bank. But these objectives can be obtained with less intrusive means. Moreover, a Vollgeld system would be hard to enforce. Banks and their clients would establish new means of payment to circumvent the regulation. And in times of crisis, the central bank would feel obliged to provide liquidity assistance and bail outs. The central problem is not that private money is used for transactions; it rather is that the money’s users rely on the central bank to guarantee the substitutability of private money and base money. In a democracy, the central bank cannot credibly let large parts of the payment system go under. A sudden, forceful change of regime does not offer a credible way out of this trap.
Topics:
Dirk Niepelt considers the following as important: *, Bailout, bank run, base money, Contributions, Credibility, Enforcement, Guarantee, Liquidity, Means of payment, Reserves, Seignorage, Vollgeld
This could be interesting, too:
Dirk Niepelt writes “Augenwischerei um SNB-Ausschüttungen (Misconceptions about SNB Distributions),” NZZ, 2024
Dirk Niepelt writes Bank of England CBDC Academic Advisory Group
Dirk Niepelt writes Panel on “Will the digital euro take off?,” CEPR, 2023
Dirk Niepelt writes Conference on “The Macroeconomic Implications of Central Bank Digital Currencies,” CEPR/ECB, 2023
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 16, 2016. PDF, HTML. Ökonomenstimme, June 17, 2016. HTML.
- Vollgeld seems attractive because it decouples the supply of money from intermediation. By enabling everyone to use legal tender for electronic payments, electronic base money would satisfy a need.
- Vollgeld would prevent bank runs, at least partly; render deposit insurance unnecessary and reduce moral hazard; could help stabilize the credit cycle; and would redistribute seignorage to the central bank.
- But these objectives can be obtained with less intrusive means.
- Moreover, a Vollgeld system would be hard to enforce. Banks and their clients would establish new means of payment to circumvent the regulation. And in times of crisis, the central bank would feel obliged to provide liquidity assistance and bail outs.
- The central problem is not that private money is used for transactions; it rather is that the money’s users rely on the central bank to guarantee the substitutability of private money and base money. In a democracy, the central bank cannot credibly let large parts of the payment system go under.
- A sudden, forceful change of regime does not offer a credible way out of this trap.
- But letting the general public access central bank reserves without abolishing private money from one day to the other may open a path towards a new arrangement where the public learns to distinguish between private and base money and where only the latter is publicly guaranteed.