Growth rates have been stubbornly low since the financial crisis, and many have noted that the interest rate environment has been weakening since the 1980s. This column places recent episodes in the context of longer-term economic history, going back to the 14th century. Trends over recent decades are generally in line with a long-term ‘suprasecular’ trend of declining real rates. Negative real rates could become a more frequent phenomenon, and indeed constitute a ‘new normal’.
Financial regulation and banking
Central banks are alert to the challenge of cryptocurrencies, and are contemplating reactions ranging from prohibiting private issuance to embracing such currencies. This column argues that the risks of introducing a central bank digital currency are high while the efficiency gains do not seem large. A more efficient system can be achieved via innovation in current payment infrastructure.
The Basel III reform raised banks’ capital requirement per risk-weighted assets considerably, while risk weights were largely unchanged. This column uses a simple model to explore whether these risk weights discourage productive business investments. The model shows that when firms face collateral constraints, the optimal risk weights on corporate loans should be ‘flatter’ than they are at present. A quantitative assessment, however, suggests that welfare losses from the current system may not be large.
Economists have been dismissive of cryptocurrencies, but fintech entrepreneurs and enthusiasts continue to see their disruptive potential. This column considers the theoretical and practical arguments on both sides of the debate. Traditional currencies are overwhelmingly superior as forms of money, and cryptocurrencies’ advantage in terms of lax regulation is unlikely to last. There remains, however, ample potential for innovation in payment systems.
The effectiveness of monetary policy in dictating banking activities is one of the keys to understanding how efficient monetary policy is in tuning the real economy. This column uses data on Norwegian banks to show that efficiency may be eroded by international financial flows in a small open economy. This raises several challenges for central banks and financial regulatory agencies in such economies.
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Events
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30 May - 1 June 2018 / Palma de Mallorca (Mallorca) - Spain / EAYE (European Association of Young Economists) - University of the Balearic Islands
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18 - 19 June 2018 / European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, Germany / European Central Bank
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12 - 13 September 2018 / Rome, Italy / European Center of Sustainable Development , CIT University
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14 - 15 June 2018 / Ancona, Italy / Money and Finance Research Group (MoFiR), together with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and the Università Politecnica delle Marche
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20 - 21 August 2018 / Goethe University Frankfurt / Central Bank Research Association (CEBRA) and the Research Center SAFE (Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe) at Goethe University Frankfurt
