In recent years, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have emerged, in upcoming years, corporate currencies such as Libra (Diem) and central bank digital currencies will emerge even in low-inflation developed economies. Using the dual currency search model of Kiyotaki and Wright (1993), we show how...

The coexistence of cash and digital currencies constitutes a system of parallel currencies. This paper tackles the question whether a new (digital) currency is essential: Does a new currency allow for a better resource allocation even if a fully accepted currency is in circulation and still...

Private cryptocurrencies allow for payments without the need for a financial institution. These institutions, the central bank and retail banks, may thus observe a decline in the demand for their payments systems, i.e. cash and deposits. Using the monetary search model of Lagos and Wright...

We conceptualize global liquidity as global monetary policy and credit components by means of a large-scale dynamic factor model. Going beyond previous work, we decompose aggregate credit components into credit supply and demand flows directed at businesses, households and governments. We show...

We estimate the marginal effects of identified components of global liquidity on 43 real economies. To this end, we employ global public and private credit components of Herwartz, Ochsner, and Rohloff (2021) in factor-augmented vector-autoregressions to trace credit shocks through the real...

This paper examines whether a central bank digital currency (CBDC) reinforces inefficiencies in transactions with cash. In this case, the gap between the traded quantity and the welfare-maximizing one, which arises due to discounting or a suboptimal amount of money, increases further. To get...

This paper analyzes whether nation-state governments can increase their credibility by becoming members of international organizations. Credibility is an important asset because it determines the real interest rate and is expected to have an important impact on investment and growth. It is...

Analysis of the economic effects of constitutional rules has made substantial progress over the last decade. This survey provides an overview of this rapidly growing research area and also discusses a number of methodological issues and identifies underresearched areas. It argues that the next...

This paper is based on the conjecture that institutional details matter and that attempts to estimate the economic effects of federalism by drawing on a simple dummy variable neglect potentially important institutional details. Based on a pricipal component analysis, seven aspects of both...

The statement institutions matter has become commonplace. A precondition for it to be supported by empirical evidence, is, however, that institutions are measurable. Glaeser et al. (2004) attacks many studies claiming to prove the relevance of institutions for economic development as being based...