There is a topic I believe is going to be exceptionally important over the next decade, and that is Central Bank Digital Currencies. Let me be clear at the outset that I am not a professional economist, nor am I a CBDC expert. I do have a couple of extra IQ points to rub together, however, and for both my sake and yours, I wanted to try to educate myself about this crucial topic.
It wasn’t all fun and games; reading some of the academia about this subject doesn’t exactly crackle with warm-blooded humanity, as with this excerpt:
(more…)When households endogenously select into banked and unbanked, the introduction of a CBDC, which pays interest and is assumed to be immune to theft, can be Pareto improving and always increases welfare of at least unbanked households. The economic mechanism driving the welfare implications focuses on the interaction between the new monetary policy tool introduced by an interest-bearing CBDC and banks’ limited commitment.
FEDS Notes, November 9, 2020, “Central Bank Digital Currency: A Literature Review”