This paper presents the arguments for and against central bank digital currency increasing financial inclusion. Financial inclusion is arguably one of the many reasons for issuing a central bank digital currency. The arguments in support of CBDC increasing financial inclusion are that CBDC can...

Many central banks are currently investigating Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and possible designs. A recent survey conducted by the European Central Bank has found that both citizens and professionals consider privacy the most important feature of a CBDC. We show how a central bank could...

With the emergence of Bitcoin and recently proposed stablecoins from BigTechs, such as Diem (formerly Libra), central banks face growing competition from private actors offering their own digital alternative to physical cash. We do not address the normative question whether a central bank should...

This paper analyses the consequences for monetary policy in the presence of currencies issued by firms. Such currencies generate seignorage revenues and information on consumers. In a benchmark model of imperfectly competing firms, information breaks the usual portfolio indeterminacy as in...

We investigate the risks and opportunities to the mandates of central banks arising from fintech developments. Fintech may affect the different areas of responsibility of central banks - mainly monetary policy and financial stability - by changing money demand and by changing the industrial...

An anonymous credential mechanism is a set of protocols that allows users to obtain credentials from an organization and demonstrate ownership of these credentials without compromising users' privacy. In this work, we construct the first secret-free and quantum-safe credential mechanism. The...

This paper explains the nature of interest rates in the U.S. federal funds market after the 2007-09 financial crisis. We build a model of the over-the-counter lending market that incorporates new aspects of the financial system: abundance of liquidity, different regulatory standards for banks,...

Digital payments and decentralized systems enable the creation of new financial products and services for users. One core challenge in digital payments is the need to protect users from fraud and abuse while retaining privacy in individual transactions. We propose a pseudonymous credential...

In recent years, as a result of the financial crisis, several proposals have been put forward to restore some role for gold in the monetary system. In particular, there has been a proposal to employ gold as a nominal anchor or asset for the exchange rates between the most important and tradable...

This paper makes a conceptual contribution to the e ffect of monetary policy on financial stability. We develop a microfounded network model with endogenous network formation to analyze the impact of central banks' monetary policy interventions on systemic risk. Banks choose their portfolio,...