Tag Archives: money creation

SRF, April 28, 2018. HTML with link to audio file (interview starts at 13:15). Interview with Swiss public radio about Vollgeld and the Vollgeld initiative.

In the NZZ, Peter Fischer reports that SNB president Thomas Jordan rejects the Vollgeld initiative and stops short of endorsing the ‘reserves for all’ proposal. … wehrt sich die Nationalbank auch gegen Vorschläge aus akademischen Kreisen, die von der Nationalbank fordern, nicht mehr nur Banken, sondern auch direkt den Schweizer Bürgern elektronisches Zentralbankgeld zur Verfügung zu stellen. Am einfachsten ginge dies,...

In the NZZ, Peter Fischer reports that SNB president Thomas Jordan rejects the Vollgeld initiative and stops short of endorsing the ‘reserves for all’ proposal. … wehrt sich die Nationalbank auch gegen Vorschläge aus akademischen Kreisen, die von der Nationalbank fordern, nicht mehr nur Banken, sondern auch direkt den Schweizer Bürgern elektronisches Zentralbankgeld zur Verfügung zu stellen. Am einfachsten ginge dies, wenn jedermann bei der SNB ein Konto halten könnte. Jordan warnt...

In the most ironic story of the day, the company that makes the paper that Swiss banknotes are printed on was just bailed out by the money-printing, stock-purchasing, plunge-protecting, savior-of-global equities…Swiss National Bank. - Click to enlarge While The SNB has a long and checkered history of buying shares in companies… as we have detailed numerous times, it is no stranger to pumping money into companies...

NZZ, November 16, 2017. PDF. Ökonomenstimme, November 20, 2017. HTML. On money creation. Some misconceptions. Why money is less special than commonly thought.

On his blog, John Cochrane argues that banks could, and should be 100% equity financed. His points are: (1) There are plenty of safe assets—government debt—out there and banks do not need to “create” additional safe assets—deposits. I share this view partly. First, I don’t know what amount of safe assets are sufficient from a social point of view. Second, I don’t consider government debt to be a safe asset. Third, debt has safety and liquidity properties. The question is not only whether...

In its April 2017 Quarterly Report, the Deutsche Bundesbank discusses the role of banks in the creation of money. Findings from a wavelet analysis indicate that in Germany, money and credit move in parallel in the long run. In an appendix, the report mentions possible welfare costs of curbing maturity transformation, with reference to Diamond and Dybvig’s work. This is not convincing. Unlike in the typical (microeconomic) banking model, aggregate central bank provided money need not be...

Presentation at the Liechtenstein Institute about the Vollgeld initiative, the blockchain revolution, and their possible effects on banks and the monetary system. Report in Liechtensteiner Vaterland, February 1, 2017. HTML. Interview in Wirtschaft Regional, February 4, 2017. PDF.

Jonathan McMillan proposes a systemic solvency rule which stipulates that [t]he value of the real assets of a company has to be greater than or equal to the value of the company’s liabilities in the worst financial state. (p. 147) That is, the financial assets of a company have to be financed by equity. This reminds of Kotlikoff’s limited purpose banking, see here and here. McMillan (who is actually two persons, a banker and a journalist) argues that Kotlikoff’s proposal is a step in the...

In the FT, Martin Wolf discusses Mervyn King’s proposal to make the central bank a “pawnbroker for all seasons” as laid out in King’s recent book “The End of Alchemy.” Lord King offers a novel alternative. Central banks would still act as lenders of last resort. But they would no longer be forced to lend against virtually any asset, since that very possibility must create moral hazard. Instead, they would agree the terms on which they would lend against assets in a crisis, including...