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Monetary Reform, Central Banks and Digital Currencies

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Abstract

The modern debate about monetary reform has taken on a new twist with the development of distributed ledger payments technology employing private digital currencies. In order to consider the appropriate state response, we go back to first principles of money and finance and the case for financial regulation: to ensure provision of a safe money asset and a stable supply of credit within an inherently unstable financial system. We consider calls to privatise money or to restrict money issue to the state against the background of the increasing marketisation of the financial sector and money itself. Following an analysis of private digital currencies, we then consider proposals for state issue of digital currency. It is concluded that the focus of attention should instead be on updating of regulation, not only to encompass digital currencies, but also to address other innovations in the financial sector which generate credit and liquidity, in order to meet the needs of the real economy. JEL Classification: E3, E5, G1

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  • Sheila Dow, 2018. "Monetary Reform, Central Banks and Digital Currencies," Department Discussion Papers 1805, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    • Handle: RePEc:vic:vicddp:1805
    Note: ISSN 1914-2838
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    Cited by:

    1. Huosong Xia & Yangmei Gao & Justin Zuopeng Zhang, 2023. "Understanding the adoption context of China’s digital currency electronic payment," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-27, December.
    2. Li, Zhenghui & Yang, Cunyi & Huang, Zhehao, 2022. "How does the fintech sector react to signals from central bank digital currencies?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    3. Hoang, Yen Hai & Ngo, Vu Minh & Bich Vu, Ngoc, 2023. "Central bank digital currency: A systematic literature review using text mining approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Samuel Demeulemeester, 2022. "What analytical framework for Sovereign Money? Some insight from the 100% Money literature, and a comment on criticisms," Working Papers hal-03751756, HAL.
    5. Aniruddha Dutta & Saket Kumar & Meheli Basu, 2020. "A Gated Recurrent Unit Approach to Bitcoin Price Prediction," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-16, February.
    6. Qing Shi & Xiaoqi Sun, 2020. "A Scientometric Review of Digital Currency and Electronic Payment Research: A Network Perspective," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2020, pages 1-17, November.
    7. Bibi, Samuele, 2023. "Money in the time of crypto," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Digital Currencies; Central Banks; Financial Instability; Financial Regulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets

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