IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/bubdp1/5171.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regionalwährungen in Deutschland: Lokale Konkurrenz für den Euro?

Author

Listed:
  • Rösl, Gerhard

Abstract

In a surprisingly growing number of regions in Germany private "regional currencies" are issued as a cash substitute for the euro. Currently, these regional currencies are conceived almost exclusively as Schwundgeld (depreciative currency), which loses value on a predetermined timescale. This loss of value is intended to encourage the money owners to spend their money quickly in order to boost local demand. The paper shows that the issuance of unofficial parallel currencies is not a fundamentally new phenomenon neither in Germany nor in other European countries. The theoretical assumptions of the Schwundgeld concept (Silvio Gesell (1862 – 1930)) are highly flawed and suboptimal from a welfare-theoretical perspective. However, the current economic welfare losses resulting from the issuance of Schwundgeld are negligibly small.

Suggested Citation

  • Rösl, Gerhard, 2006. "Regionalwährungen in Deutschland: Lokale Konkurrenz für den Euro?," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2006,43, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bubdp1:5171
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/19672/1/200643dkp.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timberlake, Richard H., 1981. "The Significance of Unaccounted Currencies," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(4), pages 853-866, December.
    2. Engels, Roland, 2004. "Zur mikroökonomischen Fundierung der Geldnachfrage in allgemeinen Gleichgewichtsmodellen," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-30-04, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    3. Fischer, Stanley, 1981. "Towards an understanding of the costs of inflation: II," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 5-41, January.
    4. Hans Genberg, 2002. "Currency Substitution in Anticipation of EU Accession," IHEID Working Papers 08-2002, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    5. Feenstra, Robert C., 1986. "Functional equivalence between liquidity costs and the utility of money," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 271-291, March.
    6. Thomas F. Cooley & Gary D. Hansen, 1991. "The welfare costs of moderate inflations," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 483-518.
    7. Timberlake, Richard H, 1987. "Private Production of Scrip-Money in the Isolated Community," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 19(4), pages 437-447, November.
    8. Sargent, Thomas J & Wallace, Neil, 1975. ""Rational" Expectations, the Optimal Monetary Instrument, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(2), pages 241-254, April.
    9. Sargent, Thomas J., 1993. "Bounded Rationality in Macroeconomics: The Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288695.
    10. Robert M. Adams, 1994. "On the welfare cost of inflation," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 94-07, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    11. Roland Vaubel, 1977. "Free currency competition," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 113(3), pages 435-461, September.
    12. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    13. Tödter, Karl-Heinz & Ziebarth, Gerhard, 1997. "Price stability versus low inflation in Germany: An analysis of costs and benefits," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1997,03e, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    14. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Stanley Fischer, 1989. "Lectures on Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262022834, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    2. Adama Zerbo, 2018. "Essai d'une nouvelle représentation macroéconomique du marché du travail," Documents de travail 178, Groupe d'Economie du Développement de l'Université Montesquieu Bordeaux IV.
    3. Gerunov, Anton, 2014. "Критичен Преглед На Основните Подходи За Моделиране На Икономическите Очаквания [A Critical Review of Major Approaches for Modeling Economic Expectations]," MPRA Paper 68797, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Kenny, Geoff & McGettigan, Donal, 1997. "Low Inflation or Price Stability? A Look at the Issues," Research Technical Papers 3/RT/97, Central Bank of Ireland.
    5. Kevin D. Hoover, 2012. "Microfoundational Programs," Chapters, in: Microfoundations Reconsidered, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. John Duffy, 2022. "Why macroeconomics needs experimental evidence," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 73(1), pages 5-29, January.
    7. Dibooglu, Sel & Kenc, Turalay, 2009. "Welfare cost of inflation in a stochastic balanced growth model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 650-658, May.
    8. Wu, Yangru & Zhang, Junxi, 2000. "Monopolistic competition, increasing returns to scale, and the welfare costs of inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 417-440, October.
    9. Király, Júlia, 1998. "A makroökonómia vége, avagy egy megkésett Nobel-díj (Robert E. Lucas) [The end of macroeconomy, or a belated Nobel prize (Robert E. Lucas)]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(12), pages 1082-1095.
    10. Philip Arestis & Alexander Mihailov, 2011. "Classifying Monetary Economics: Fields And Methods From Past To Future," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 769-800, September.
    11. Tomiyuki Kitamura & Masaki Tanaka, 2019. "Firms' Inflation Expectations under Rational Inattention and Sticky Information: An Analysis with a Small-Scale Macroeconomic Model," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 19-E-16, Bank of Japan.
    12. Andrew G Haldane, 1997. "Designing Inflation Targets," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Philip Lowe (ed.),Monetary Policy and Inflation Targeting, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    13. Javier Valles & Jose Vinals, 1999. "On the real effects of the monetary policy: A central banker's view," Working Papers 38, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    14. John B. Taylor, 1983. "Rational Expectations Models in Macroeconomics," NBER Working Papers 1224, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Gbaguidi, David, 2012. "La courbe de Phillips : temps d’arbitrage et/ou arbitrage de temps," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 88(1), pages 87-119, mars.
    16. Pierre-Alain Muet, 1993. "Modèles d'équilibre et de déséquilibre dans les théories contemporaines des cycles," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 45(1), pages 53-93.
    17. Taylor, John B., 1999. "Staggered price and wage setting in macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 1009-1050, Elsevier.
    18. Gerhard Rösl & Franz Seitz & Karl-Heinz Tödter, 2019. "The Cost of Overcoming the Zero Lower-Bound: A Welfare Analysis," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-18, July.
    19. English, William B., 1999. "Inflation and financial sector size," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 379-400, December.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    21. repec:onb:oenbwp:y::i:38:b:1 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Paul Hubert, 2010. "Monetary policy, imperfect information and the expectations channel [Politique monétaire,information imparfaite et canal des anticipations]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-04095385, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regionalwährungen; Regionalgeld; Parallelgeld; Gesell; Währungssubstitution; Schwundgeld; Freigeld; currency substitution; private money;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E41 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Demand for Money
    • E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:bubdp1:5171. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dbbgvde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.