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...
Read More »“Der digitale Euro könnte zur Totgeburt werden (Digital Euro, Dead on Arrival?),” NZZ, 2023
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, July 5, 2023. PDF. HTML. Ein digitaler Euro könnte den Wettbewerb fördern, mehr Transparenz schaffen und das Too-big-to-fail-Problem entschärfen. Mit ihrer Minimalvariante aber priorisiert die EZB das Ziel der Bewahrung des Status quo im Bankensystem.
Read More »“Dunkle Perspektiven: Wenn auch die UBS gerettet werden müsste (Chilling UBS Rescue Scenario),” SRF, 2023
Echo der Zeit, SRF, 12 May 2023. HTML with link to audio file. Implications of capital injections and liquidity assistance for the federal government, the SNB, and Switzerland.
Read More »“Finanzplatz steuert auf eine Verstaatlichung der UBS zu (Switzerland on its Way to Nationalizing UBS),” NZZ, 2023
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, March 22, 2023. PDF. How to respond? Nationalization now rather than later? Breaking UBS up? Placing government representatives on the supervisory board? Illiquidity crises and the lender of last resort. Vollgeld, higher reserve requirements, and CBDC as partial solutions to TBTF problems.
Read More »“Digitales Notenbankgeld – und nun? (CBDC—What Next?),” FuW, 2021
Finanz und Wirtschaft, December 8, 2021. PDF. I draw some conclusions from the CEPR eBook on CBDC, namely: Banks will change, whatever happens to CBDC. The main risk of retail CBDC is not bank disintermediation. CBDC may not be the best option even if it has net benefits. It should be for parliaments and voters, not central banks, to decide about the introduction of CBDC.
Read More »“Digitales Notenbankgeld – und nun? (CBDC—What Next?),” FuW, 2021
Finanz und Wirtschaft, December 8, 2021. PDF. I draw some conclusions from the CEPR eBook on CBDC, namely: Banks will change, whatever happens to CBDC. The main risk of retail CBDC is not bank disintermediation. CBDC may not be the best option even if it has net benefits. It should be for parliaments and voters, not central banks, to decide about the introduction of CBDC. [embedded content] You Might Also Like...
Read More »Climate Change and Financial Stability
John Cochrane on climate change and financial stability: Climate change and financial stability are pressing problems. They require coherent, intelligent, scientifically valid policy responses, and promptly. But climate financial regulation will not help the climate, will further politicize central banks, and will destroy their precious independence, while forcing financial companies to devise absurdly fictitious climate-risk assessments will ruin financial regulation. The next...
Read More »“Digital Finance,” FuW, 2020
Finanz und Wirtschaft, January 4, 2020. PDF. Finance has been digital for decades. And both technology and preferences are only changing gradually. So, what triggers the abrupt changes in business models that we currently observe? The interaction between industry on the one hand and legislators and regulators on the other has changed. New entrants exploit synergies across areas that have so far been regulated by independent authorities, or not at all. While entrants think and act outside...
Read More »Treasury Direct
A common argument against retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) is that CBDC would undermine financial stability by allowing the general public to swiftly move funds from banks to a government account. But in several countries such swift transfers are possible already today—in the US through Treasury Direct. (The argument also has conceptual flaws, see the paper On the Equivalence of Public and Private Money with Markus Brunnermeier.)
Read More »“Kosten und Nutzen eines Vollgeldsystems (Costs and Benefits of `Sovereign Money’),” ifoSD, 2018
ifo Schnelldienst 16/2018, August 23, 2018. PDF.
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