Barcelona Report 8: Digital Money

The eighth report in The Future of Banking series, part of the Banking Initiative at IESE Business School, examines the challenges digital technology poses to the framework governing money creation. Cash is disappearing from daily payments, private digital liabilities are expanding domestically and internationally, and public authorities are reevaluating the role of sovereign money. The report shifts attention from technological novelty to the institutional arrangements that make money reliable. Its central argument is that the most important questions raised by digital money concern the architecture of the monetary system: who creates money and under what safeguards, how liquidity is preserved during periods of stress, and how the rents and risks associated with money creation are distributed between public and private entities. It examines the social value of private money creation and the need for a central bank digital currency; the implications of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins for the international monetary system and their macroeconomic effects; and the regulatory approach to digital currencies and tokenisation. Join the authors Stephen Cecchetti (Brandeis and CEPR), Dirk Niepelt (University of Bern and CEPR), Hélène Rey (London Business School and CEPR) and Xavier Vives (IESE and CEPR) for an online presentation and discussion featuring comments by Lucrezia Reichlin (London Business School and CEPR).