The monetary system is at a turning point. The question is no longer if, but how soon countries will roll out a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). This book discusses the recomposition of the money supply from the present bank money regime to a monetary system determined by CBDC. As the book sets out, the future of money is going to be digital and sovereign. Nonetheless, the relationship between the various types of money is competitive rather than being the peaceful coexistence that was officially envisaged. CBDC competes with the incumbent bank money as well as with private cryptocurrencies that are challenging both central-bank money as well as bank money. For technological and political reasons, bank money will not be able to emulate the superior properties of sovereign digital tokens. Uncovered and unwarranted cryptocurrencies, too, will not stand the competition in the long run. The shifts in the monetary system are changing the role of central banks in the interplay of monetary, fiscal and private-creditary functions and open up improved options for monetary policy. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and policymakers in monetary and financial economics, and digital currencies.
Author(s): Joseph Huber
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 197
City: Cham
Contents
Abbreviations and Glossary
List of Tables
List of Boxes
1 Core Points for Introduction
2 Three-Tier Monetary System. Types of Money, Their Creation and Circulation
2.1 Three-Tier Taxonomy of Money
2.2 Base Level: Central-Bank Money
2.3 Second Tier: Active and Deactivated Bank Money
2.3.1 Second Tier Active: Liquid Bank Money
2.3.2 Second Tier Inactive: Deactivated Bank Money
2.4 Third Tier: New Money Surrogates (Money Market Fund Shares, E-money, Stablecoins, Complementary Currencies)
2.4.1 Money Market Fund Shares (MMFs)
2.4.2 E-money
2.4.3 Stablecoins
2.4.4 Complementary Currencies (CCs)
2.5 Base-Level Challengers: Uncovered and Unwarranted Cryptocurrencies and Complementary Currencies
References
3 Dominant Money. The Bank Money Regime
3.1 Dominant Currency and Dominant Money
3.2 Bank Money as Dominant Money. Substantial Loss of Monetary Control
3.2.1 Dominant Bank Money. Central-bank Money as Subordinate Reserve
3.2.2 Decline in Cash and Operationally Necessitated Reserves
3.3 Monetary Credit and Intermediary Credit. Payment Processing and Financial Intermediation
3.4 The Hemispheres of Finance: GDP Finance and Non-GDP Finance. Consumer Price Inflation and Asset Inflation
3.5 Recurrent Financial Market Failure
References
4 Monetary Sovereignty. Bank Money as Para-Sovereign Fiat Money
References
5 Historical Turning Points in the Composition of the Money Supply
5.1 Types of Money in Epochal Rise and Decline
5.2 1660s Until 1840s: Rising Tide of Unregulated Paper Money, Incipient Decline in the Systemic Importance of Sovereign Coin
5.3 1840s Until Around 1910: Rising Tide of National Central-Bank Notes, Ebb Tide for Unregulated Paper Money
5.4 Late Nineteenth Century Until Around 2010: Rising Tide of Bank Money, Ebb Tide for Central-Bank Notes and Reserves
5.5 Upcoming from the 2020s: Rising Tide of Digital Tokens, in Particular CBDC
References
6 Today’s Recomposition of the Money Supply
6.1 The Future of Money is Digital
6.2 The Prospects of the Various Types of Money at a Glance
6.3 CBDC Begins Its Ascent
6.4 The Age of Bank Money Has Passed Its Peak
6.5 What Will Be of Central-Bank Reserves?
6.6 Cash—On Its Way to the Money Museum
6.7 The Outlook for Unbacked Cryptocurrencies
6.7.1 Essentially an Empty Promise
6.7.2 Bitcoin and Ether
6.8 Stablecoins as Competitors to Be Taken Seriously
6.8.1 If Any, It’s Stablecoins
6.8.2 Potential Problems also with Stablecoins
6.8.3 Stablecoins in Competition with Bank Money and Central-Bank Money
References
7 CBDC System Design Principles
7.1 What System Architecture for CBDC?
7.2 Objectives Pursued and Benefits Expected
7.2.1 Monetary Connectivity (Interoperability, Convertability)
7.2.2 Efficiency Increase, Cost Reduction
7.2.3 Increased Utility
7.2.4 Social Inclusion
7.2.5 Safeguarding Financial Privacy, Verifiability and Legality
7.2.6 Improved Effectiveness of Monetary Policy, Increased Financial Stability
7.3 Disintermediation, Substitution and the Competitive Coexistence of CBDC and Bank Money
7.4 Implications for CBDC Design Principles
7.4.1 CBDC Issuance According to Market Demand
7.4.2 CBDC Accessible and Usable Without Restriction
7.4.3 Should CBDC Be Interest-Bearing?
7.4.4 CBDC as “Good Money”, Bank Money as “Bad Money”
7.4.5 Phasing Out State Support for Non-legal-tender Means of Payment
7.5 Bank Run—A Problem of Bank Money, Not of CBDC. Further Implications for CBDC Design Principles
7.6 Putting CBDC into Circulation
7.7 Coverage for Stablecoins and Other Third-Tier Money Surrogates
References
8 Central Banks and Monetary Policy Under Conditions of CBDC
8.1 Objectives of Monetary Policy. To Be or Not to Be in Control of Money Creation, Inflation, Interest Rates, Growth and Employment
8.2 Independence of Central Banks—Both from the Government as Well as Banking and Finance
8.2.1 Bank of the Banks? Bank of the State?
8.2.2 Independence in Relation to Fiscal and Budgetary Functions
8.2.3 Independence in Relation to Banking and Finance
8.3 Reference Variables and Instruments of Responsive Monetary Policies
8.4 Monetary Financing, Neutralisation of National Debt, Helicopter Money
8.4.1 Monetary Financing of Government Expenditure
8.4.2 Neutralisation of National Debt
8.4.3 Helicopter Money
8.5 Problems of Monetary Accounting
8.5.1 What Has Not Been Correct in Monetary Accounting for Long
8.5.2 “Debt Money” That Is Supposed Not to Be Debt
8.5.3 Base Money as a Kind of Equity or Social Capital
8.6 Beyond the False Identity of Money and Credit
8.6.1 Separation of a Central Bank’s Money Creation from Its Banking Operations by Means of a Currency Register
8.6.2 Changes to the Balance Sheets of Central Bank and Banks
References
Index
