During the Global Financial Crisis, banks suffered losses on a scale not witnessed since the Great Depression, partly due to two major structural developments in the banking industry; deregulation combined with financial innovation. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the regulatory...

Central banks in emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) have been modernizing their monetary policy frameworks, often moving toward inflation targeting (IT). However, questions regarding the strength of monetary policy transmission from interest rates to inflation and output have often...

We discuss the pros of adopting government-issued digital currencies as well as a supranational digital iCurrency. One such pro is to get rid of paper money (and coinage), a ubiquitous medium for spreading germs, as highlighted by the recent coronavirus outbreak. We set forth three policy...

This paper discusses operational issues for countries that want to reform their monetary policy frameworks. It argues that stabilizing short-term interest rates on a day-to-day basis has significant advantages, and thus that short-term interest rates, not reserve money, in most cases should be...

We discuss the idea of a purely algorithmic universal world iCurrency set forth in: "https://ssrn.com/abstract=2542541" https://ssrn.com/abstract=2542541 and expanded in: "https://ssrn.com/abstract=3059330" https://ssrn.com/abstract=3059330 in light of recent developments, including Libra. Is...

In the age of high-frequency trading in financial markets and faster payment services in account-to-account (A2A) transactions of bank retail customers, it may seem odd that the shortest maturity that is traded in the money market is overnight. This situation reflects policies implemented by...

This paper is a review of Danmarks Nationalbank's recent analysis of the prospects of implementing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in Denmark. We concur with Nationalbanken's conclusion that CBDC does not add efficiency or further functionality to existing payment solutions. We argue,...

Do negative policy rates hinder banks' transmission of monetary policy? To answer this question, we examine the behaviour of Italian mortgage lenders using a novel loan-level dataset. When policy rates turn negative, banks with higher ratios of retail overnight deposits to total assets charge...

Estimates of the natural interest rate are often useful in the analysis of monetary and other macroeconomic policies. The topic gathered much attention following the great financial crisis and the Euro Area debt crisis due to the uncertainty regarding the timing of monetary policy normalization...

This paper builds a model-based dynamic monetary and fiscal conditions index (DMFCI) and uses it to examine the evolution of the joint stance of monetary and fiscal policies in the euro area (EA) and in its three largest member countries over the period 2007-2018. The index is based on the...