Papers by Rasmus Hougaard Nielsen
This paper is a review of Danmarks Nationalbank's recent analysis of the pro-spects of implementi... more This paper is a review of Danmarks Nationalbank's recent analysis of the pro-spects 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, however, that their analysis fails to take into account the potentials for increased financial stability given the fact that CBDC carries no credit risk. We also find that Nationalbanken's dismissal of CBDC on the grounds that it does not provide new monetary policy tools, since interest rates are bound by the fixed exchange rate regime, fails to consider the value of CBDC in the event of a future crisis. Finally, we argue that the Nationalbanken's views may reflect a primary concern with the preservation of the existing banking sector in its current form over and above the needs of the general public.
This paper develops a new theory of seigniorage suited to modern economies where the majority of ... more This paper develops a new theory of seigniorage suited to modern economies where the majority of money is created not by the state or central bank but by commercial banks and other monetary financial institutions via their lending activity. We identify four different forms of seigniorage that take account of the modern institutional separation between the state, the central bank, commercial banks and the non-bank private sector in terms of their identities as ‘money creators’ and ‘money users’. The new typology differentiates between seigniorage profits arising from interest rate spreads on stocks of created money and profits arising from flows of interest payments on newly created assets. We illustrate our theoretical framework with empirical data on commercial bank seigniorage and related variables in the United Kingdom and the Denmark over the past quarter century.
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Papers by Rasmus Hougaard Nielsen