Tag Archives: Narrow banking

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece and an accompanying paper and blog post, John Cochrane and Amit Seru argue that vested interests prevent change towards a simpler, better-working financial system. They describe various “bail-outs” since 2020, in the U.S. financial sector and elsewhere. They point out that in Switzerland, too, the government orchestrated takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS relied on taxpayer support. And they conclude that regulatory measures after the great financial...

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...

Different aspects of the Libra proposal that various authors have emphasized: Jameson Lopp on OneZero: A “database of programmable resources;” Move; “[p]erhaps the network as a whole can switch to proof of stake, but in order for the stablecoin peg/basket to be maintained, some set of entities must keep a bridge open to the traditional financial system. This will be a persistent point of centralized control via the Libra Association”; not a blockchain, the “data structure of the ledger...

Accepted for publication in the 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...

Accepted for publication in the 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...

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is requesting comment on the proposal to lower the interest rate on excess balances of eligible institutions that hold a very large proportion of their assets in the form of reserves—i.e., on balances of ‘The Narrow Bank.’ The document states that [t]he Board is concerned that [Pass-Through Investment Entities] PTIEs, by maintaining all or substantially all of their assets in the form of balances at Reserve Banks and having the ability...

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is requesting comment on the proposal to lower the interest rate on excess balances of eligible institutions that hold a very large proportion of their assets in the form of reserves—i.e., on balances of ‘The Narrow Bank.’ The document states that [t]he Board is concerned that [Pass-Through Investment Entities] PTIEs, by maintaining all or substantially all of their assets in the form of balances at Reserve Banks and having the ability...

At an AEI event in Washington, James McAndrews discussed narrow banking and the Federal Reserve’s opposition to McAndrews’ “The Narrow Bank USA Inc.” His slides emphasize the fact that a narrow bank can help achieve goals that Federal Reserve representatives themselves promoted in the past.

At an AEI event in Washington, James McAndrews discussed narrow banking and the Federal Reserve’s opposition to McAndrews’ “The Narrow Bank USA Inc.” His slides emphasize the fact that a narrow bank can help achieve goals that Federal Reserve representatives themselves promoted in the past.

My July 2018 CEPR working paper “Reserves For All? Central Bank Digital Currency, Deposits, and their (Non)-Equivalence” has made it on several SSRN top ten lists. PDF. (Personal copy.) Abstract: I offer a macroeconomic perspective on the “Reserves for All” (RFA) proposal to let the general public use electronic central bank money. After distinguishing RFA from cryptocurrencies and relating the proposal to discussions about narrow banking and the abolition of cash I propose an equivalence...