2644 results in Agenda Publishing
6 - The sky above: the market for renewable energy
- Jonathon W. Moses, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Norway, Anne Margrethe Brigham, Ruralis, Trondheim
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- The Natural Dividend
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 15 June 2023, pp 139-172
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Summary
One of the most exciting and rapidly developing resource markets is the one for renewable energy (RE). This market is remarkably varied and broad, as it draws from a number of competing natural resources and technologies – many of which lie at the heart of the phenomenal transformations taking place across the global energy system. For this reason, the market for RE attracts a great deal of attention from policy-makers, academics and entrepreneurs. The enthusiasm and interest are exciting, but it is also important to place these developments in a larger context: RE still accounts for a remarkably small share of the world's primary energy consumption.
Because these markets are in transition, we can expect our current regulatory focus to change as the resources and technologies mature and become more competitive. Today, most regulatory attention has been aimed at supporting infant technologies and markets, so that they can better compete with more traditional (dirty and non-renewable) forms of energy.
The contemporary market for RE is dominated by three natural resources (water, wind and solar) and several underlying technologies (e.g. turbines, photovoltaic [PV] devices, concentrated solar power [CSP] furnaces, etc.). Globally, RE resources were able to generate an impressive 2,537 gigawatts (GW) in 2020 (International Renewable Energy Agency [IRENA] 2020: 1). As shown in Figure 6.1, hydropower (at 1,190 GW) makes up almost half the existing RE capacity in the world today, while the other half – roughly – comes from wind and solar energy.
Here we focus on the energy produced by the wind and the sun. There are three reasons for this particular focus. First, and foremost: wind and solar energy are remarkably special and attractive. These unique traits are elaborated upon in the section that follows, but for now we can note that these resources are ubiquitous, apparently free for the taking, clean (pollution-free) and renewable. For all these reasons, there has been a significant effort by political authorities to stimulate the production of wind and solar energy – i.e. to shift consumption from non-renewable to renewable sources of energy.
This effort has been propelled by a number of national and international initiatives. Indeed, by the end of 2020 nearly every single country in the world had some form of renewable energy support policy, albeit at varying level of ambition and effectiveness (REN21 2021
: 18).
2 - Domestic monetary and legal implications
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Book:
- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- Agenda Publishing
- Published online:
- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 23-50
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Summary
The suggested shift to a retail CBDC model involving digital money transfers to the corporate and personal (individual citizens) sectors will represent a crucial change in the monetary architecture serving retail payments and savings. The various monetary, financial, economic and legal implications of the approaches being explored for the potential issuance of CBDCs – some elements of which are being explored in the approaches taken in the various CBDC projects – will therefore need to be addressed.
The potential use of CBDCs in cross-border financial transfers will need to be examined by exploring the involvement of central banks’ RTGS systems proposed use in this area, including how central banks are experimenting with its extension via wholesale CBDC structures, in a multi-currency environment in order to secure stability, security and control over a key element of the global financial and trading system (BIS 2022a).
The contentious possibility, raised by some commentators (Zellweger-Gutknecht 2021) of introducing monetary action aimed at directly controlling consumer expenditure will be discussed, in the context of the current complex of conventional, and what are now considered “unconventional”, monetary policy instruments.
The importance of central bank money (fiat) money to the whole monetary system is difficult to overstate: it provides the central trust-anchor for the banking system and underpins the trust that citizens have in their currencies. Unless regulated, stablecoins, as a new digital source of private money, pose a potential threat to this fundamental role of the central bank. Although, private money exists in the current monetary system and is ubiquitous as commercial bank money, used by businesses and by the general public, its role is uniquely supported by the central bank. Commercial bank private money (in the form of deposits matching commercial bank loans, as assets), is matched one-to-one by the parallel reserves, created as liabilities at the central bank. These reserves are public money and serve to guarantee the private money created by the commercial banks. Unregulated stablecoins, on the other hand, are tied to the value of the various fiat currencies, but they are not matched by public money created by the relevant central banks as reserves. Neither are they able to provide the trusted settlement and clearing system offered by a well-performing central bank, utilizing the provision of a universally-accepted unit of account.
Contents
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp v-vi
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Index
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 155-156
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6 - The future of money: the next decade
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 119-128
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The nature and use of money in the economy and in society are essential aspects of how we live and work. Mostly, the structures that support the functions of money lie in the background of our lives, and we are largely unaware of the architecture underpinning the fundamental trust on which the provision and use of money depends. The private money in the UK issued by commercial banks, that we use in all our financial transactions, is necessarily anchored by the public guarantee of the Bank of England. This guarantee is only noticeable in a crisis (such as the run on the Northern Rock bank in 2008). The guarantee is necessary because for each loan and matching deposit issued by a commercial bank, there is a matching reserve at the central bank. The public money issued by the central bank in fiat money is the guaranteed numerical unit of account against which all other commodities may be valued. The unit of account is the bedrock of the economy. Whatever changes of the structure of the monetary system, the role of the central bank in providing this essential trust-anchor within monetary jurisdictions is essential to the continuous stability and trustworthiness of money. The lack of a corresponding role at global level is a gap that will eventually need to be filled rather than relying on any one national currency.
The proposed issuance of digital money directly to the general public (and to non-financial businesses) on demand, via retail CBDCs, should increase awareness of the financial and monetary architecture upon which the accepted provision and use of money depends. In the developed economies, the retail CBDC models likely to be adopted may not alter greatly the public's perception of the introduction of digital money as being from the central bank. Insofar as the digital money is likely to be in the “custodianship” of the commercial bank or financial intermediary, then the monetary architecture will remain obscured. Nonetheless, the digital money will be, as is cash, public money, issued with a direct claim on the central bank for its redemption. Indeed, if the indirect retail CBDC model is deployed then this position is further obscured in that the customer of the commercial bank will, as now with private money, have their claim for redemption made on the commercial bank, even though the CBDC digital money will be, strictly, public money.
5 - The regional and international nexus
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Book:
- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 95-118
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Summary
The development of stablecoins and their use in cross-border financial transfers has the potential to pose a threat to global financial stability. The global financial system is inherently unstable, reflecting the increasing dysfunction of the Bretton Woods global trade and finance settlement that was based on the US dollar as the principal global medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account. The deterioration in the effectiveness of this global system is being accelerated by the shift in global trade, consumption and economic growth towards the Asia-Pacific supra-region accompanied by the growing inadequacy of stable global financial reserves (SDRs) owned and managed by the IMF.
It seems likely that, unless central banks collaborate internationally in opening up the possibilities for the introduction of retail and wholesale CBDCs, then unintended negative consequences may occur. For example, if Sweden – the “first mover” among EU countries (albeit they may not now be the first to issue a CBDC) – introduced a digital krona, then its use could leak across Nordic countries. China has already suggested that their e-CNY might be used for regional trade transactions between China, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. The advent of China's exploration of cross-border retail and wholesale CBDCs has been linked to concern about the potential of extension of e-CNY for wider international payments. Some US commentators have expressed fears of its challenge to the dollar as a reserve currency. The Bank of International Settlements is considering all these issues. The significant emphasis placed on the use of CBDCs by the BIS in relation to cross-border payments related to trade, tourism and capital movements is indicative of the concern exhibited by central banks about the use of unregulated stablecoins for international payments. The various central bank CBDC activities could be regarded as a precursor to the eventual adoption of a global reserve digital currency. A move the US will be likely to strongly resist, despite the use of the dollar as the main reserve currency being a mixed blessing, as Barry Eichengreen (2017) and other economists have pointed out. This explains some of the resistance to CBDCs among US financial institutions and economists.
3 - Technology
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Book:
- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 51-74
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The database technologies available for CBDCs are either centralized, decentralized, or semi-decentralized databases. The use of distributed ledger technology (DLT), or a “bespoke” version of blockchain, which maintains a measure of centralized control by the central bank, are the main options for both retail and wholesale CBDCs. The issue for central banks will be whether the financial data of a distributed group of participants can be collectively and safely maintained, without internal system reliance on a single central party or a centralized data store. Whatever variant of CBDC is selected, it must offer scalability, confidentiality/privacy, availability/latency and security/resilience.
There are four technology decisions, all relating to the potential design model choices to be made by central banks for both retail CBDCs and wholesale CBDCs. First, the choice between a central ledger database technology (the current position) versus a decentralized, distributed database technology. Second, should a fully decentralized database technology prove too problematic for central banks, is a semi-decentralized approach practical and how exactly does this choice involve DLT/blockchain technology? Third, how do the database choices relate to the use-cases for wholesale CBDCs for cross-border applications and the available retail CBDC model design options? Finally, how best to establish interoperability between differing database approaches and maintain technological innovation over time.
Central vs decentralized databases
As far as retail CBDCs are concerned the decision has yet to be made, although it seems likely that DLT, in some format, will be used for establishing retail CBDCs, albeit often under an API. Scalability is a key issue for retail CBDCs, whereas wholesale CBDCs when used for cross-border transfers involve a smaller number of participants on the network.
Traditionally, central bank databases have been centralized. Network centralization developed, historically, as a means to improve efficiency and take advantage of potential economies of scale. On the other hand, decentralization seeks to improve the speed and flexibility of networks by decentralizing computer processing across the network to the individual user (Brookings 2020).
Centralized ledgers, as used by central banks in the current monetary system architecture, provide a complete overview of wholesale transactions, demands for which they receive from commercial banks for clearance and settlement, using the movement of reserves to do so. Given the crucial role of central banks in maintaining trust in the monetary system, having centralized control of the ledger is a convenient and secure way of maintaining that trust-anchor role.
Appendix 1 - Retail CBDC case studies
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 129-134
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Summary
China
China's interest in potentially establishing a CBDC began in 2014 when a study of retail digital money was initiated by the People's Bank of China (Higgins 2016). In 2017, China's State Council approved the PBOC's proposal, in cooperation with commercial banks, to design the CBDC. This work was done by a Digital Currency Research Institute under the aegis of the PBOC and its aim is to design a digital currency electronic payment (DCEP) system that will function much like a digital form of cash. For retail payments it will operate principally through smartphones.
At the end of 2017, on the approval of the State Council, the PBOC began to work with commercial institutions in developing and testing digital fiat currency (hereinafter referred to as e-CNY, a provisional abbreviation following international practice). In May 2019, PBOC governor Yi Gang stated that “top-level design” of e-CNY had already been completed and announced that initial pilot projects would take place in Chengdu, Shenzhen, Suzhou and Xiong’an (Lloyd & Savic 2021). In Suzhou, for example, some government workers were told to download an e-CNY digital wallet app. In May 2020, government workers in Suzhou began to be paid portions of a transportation subsidy via DCEP (Fathi 2022).
The general concern for the PBOC, along with other central banks at the time, was that the introduction of a sizeable, global, private payments digital currency, such as Diem, could eventually mean that they might lose control over the issuance of their currency, including cash, as a medium of exchange. China has experienced a substantial move to cashless payments, which has meant that individuals have been losing direct access (because of the increasing dominance of Alipay and Tencent payment applications) to the cash renminbi as China's currency. The introduction of a CBDC would not only resolve this problem, but monetary policy could be, if desired, directly transmitted to the general public (BIS 2021).
According to the PBOC's own survey conducted in 2019 (PBOC 2021b), mobile payments accounted for 66 per cent of all transactions and 59 per cent of the total value, whereas those paid in cash accounted for 23 per cent and 16 per cent, and those paid by card 7 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively.
Frontmatter
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp i-iv
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Appendix 2 - Wholesale CBDC: cross-border examples
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 135-142
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Summary
Thailand
In 2018 the Bank of Thailand (BoT) launched its first CBDC project (Bank of Thailand 2019): a proof of concept (Inthanon Project) for a Corda DLT-based project for wholesale domestic and cross-border funds transfer using central bank digital currency. A second project, which will only be discussed here in passing, was for a DLT scripless bond project, an initiative to increase efficiency for saving bond registration and sales processes.
The project reported success in three key areas which demonstrated the potential for a DLT system. Firstly, the system was able to handle both tokenized cash and bonds, that is two separate asset classes. Secondly, it had the ability to create and exchange tokens simultaneously, avoiding the necessity for intermediaries. Thirdly, banks were able to settle in cash tokens around the clock and facilitate business when closed.
Other issues considered provided mixed evidence and a need in some operations to adjust the system functionality. For example, achieving settlement finality, which is a necessary condition of payment systems, including RTGS systems, meant the BoT running a single “notary” node to achieve consensus on the final settlement of transactions.
Another important issue examined was privacy, especially privacy for transactions. Essentially, the Corda “blockchain approach” identifies only a transaction identifier of the tokens exchanged so that the central bank, or other qualified nodal participants (namely banks), are not able to have information on the token amounts, the sender, the recipient or the asset type, only that the token(s) have been spent and the transaction irrevocably concluded.
Resiliency, of both the data involved and the network itself was tested. Although generally, DLT-based systems offer high resilience against data failures at any specific node, because each node can request copies of data from other nodes. In the project, privacy issues meant that this was not permissible. Instead, specific control points were established that automatically saved the relevant transaction data.
In terms of network resilience, it was found that in bilateral transfers, if the notary node failed the specific transaction involved could not be settled, but other nodes worked. In terms of automatic liquidity provision (ALP) – a key component of central bank action to provide liquidity to banks running short of cash reserves in RTGS systems – both the notary node and the separate BoT node were critical in ensuring network resilience, failure of either would be inimical to the adequate functioning of the system.
4 - Impact on the commercial banking sector
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Book:
- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 75-94
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Summary
The introduction of CBDCs is likely to have significant impacts on customers’ use of both current and deposit accounts at commercial banks whichever of the four model design variants is implemented. The BIS “recommendation” of an intermediation model would preserve much of the current role of the commercial banks, as would the indirect model, albeit at the potential risk of losing some of the CBDC's wider benefits. Criticism has been levied at the current commercial banking system and structure and the need for reform (see RSA 2020; Lloyd 2021). Moreover, in a speech in 2021, Sir Jon Cunliffe, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England stated that “It is not the responsibility of financial stability authorities to preserve any particular business models, including in banking” (Cunliffe 2021a).
However, CBDCs are not being introduced into a monetary system where commercial banks have an effective monopoly position. Indeed, one of the reasons given for the potential introduction of CBDCs is the increasing provision of competing peer-to-peer internet-based financial payment systems, now accompanied by the introduction of stablecoins and the concerns they raise as providing competing private money channels in relation to Forex (foreign exchange transactions) and cross-border securities exchange. What appears to be clear, at this stage, is that the extent of loan creation via existing alternative finance (AFI) from payment service providers – including fintech providers such as Funding Circle – despite growing strongly, still only represents around 10 per cent of total lending in the UK (CCAF 2021).
Commercial banking: business model and existing digital money
Banks run a complicated business model, serving multiple, interrelated functions including everyday banking, loans and payments. So far, they have not been unduly disturbed by internet-based payment systems, and the share of the payments market by alternative finance provision has not been large. However, stablecoins and the potential involvement of Big Tech, may shake the complacency of the banks (Lloyd 2021). The banks’ position is bolstered by their access to very large client bases and the provision of a range of relatively low cost, but also low unit-profit services, such as account administration, distribution and payment transfers.
Introduction
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Book:
- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 1-8
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Money is almost as old as human civilization. All monetary tokens, bank notes for example, are a form of “IOU”, expressing a social relation between creditor and debtor (Ingham 2004; Dodd 2014). The historical forms which money has taken have varied and the concept itself has been studied across many scientific and philosophical disciplines. The role and allocation of money in the multifarious forms of social, cultural, economic and political organization has always been crucial in influencing the structures and functioning of those organizational and societal forms.
It is broadly accepted, from historical and anthropological studies (Gayer 1937), that fiat money arose by the state issuing credit-tokens which were used by the state to purchase goods and services (including the military means to fight wars) and the state issued those credit-tokens in payment of taxes by citizens. In this manner the state's public monetary sphere subsumed the existing private credit networks, providing a guaranteed monetary anchor.
Money is not a physical object, but rather a system of recording account settlements denoted in a common notional unit of account. Money is not a commodity, whether it is physical money (cash) or digital money.
Luigi Einaudi (Gayer 1937: 265) indicates the historical evidence:
Books and pamphlets and statutes of the ninth to the eighteenth century are unintelligible if one does not bear in mind the distinction between money of account or imaginary money and effective or coined money. Usually, the money of account was called libra, livre, lira. Men kept accounts, drew instruments of debt, sold and bought goods and securities and property rights in imaginary money, which they never saw. Coins had strange names, they poured into each country from all parts of the world, were gold and silver and half silver dresses, were minted at home or by foreign princes. They made no difference to people who continue to talk and negotiate and keep accounts in libras.
This account indicates the irrelevance of a “commodity-based” money and the necessity of having a “unit of account” based monetary system.
The cryptocurrency Bitcoin affords a modern demonstration of the inherent paradox in commodity-based money. It has a strictly controlled chain in supply (via hash-mining) and a maximum limit on creation over time (21 million coins).
References
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 143-154
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Central Bank Digital Currencies
- The Future of Money
- Michael Lloyd
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- Published by:
- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023
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The advent of digital stablecoins and the continuing decline of cash are prompting central banks across the world to explore developing their own digital currencies. Although few have launched so far, the potential for central bank digital currency (CBDC) promises a revolution in banking.
Michael Lloyd considers the opportunities and threats that the arrival of CBDCs will have for commercial banking and the world's monetary system. The choices facing central banks regarding the use, design and technology of digital currencies are examined as well as the potential impacts on consumer security and privacy.
1 - Retail and wholesale CBDCs
- Michael Lloyd, Global Policy Institute, London
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- Book:
- Central Bank Digital Currencies
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 08 June 2023, pp 9-22
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Central banks are actively involved in the research, development and piloting of retail digital currencies. The factors stimulating this active interest are several: (1) the decreasing use of cash for transaction purposes, especially in developed countries; (2) the increasing use of smartphone utilization in developed countries; (3) the absence, in less developed countries, of wide access to formal banking arrangements combined with the widespread availability of smartphones; (4) the availability of emerging digital information and communications technologies, driving a global digital age; and (5) a potential enhanced ability to target central bank monetary policy directly at individual consumer spending. There is also an urgency for central banks to explore wholesale cross-border CBDCs, given central banks’ desire to maintain international financial stability. These various concerns are seen by central banks, and by governments, as requiring a defence of fiat currencies, the crucial trust-anchor role of central banks, and monetary/financial stability, within monetary jurisdictions (BIS 2021).
Central banks are especially concerned with the problems and risks associated with private international cross-border payments, and the opportunities presented for establishing wholesale CBDCs for cross-border financial transfers. Currently some 92 central banks around the world are participating in the various worldwide projects. For example, an April 2021 stock-take of central bank research and design efforts finds that out of 47 current retail CBDC projects, 11 are in addition exploring or piloting single national currency and multi-currency wholesale CBDCs in cross-border environments (Auer & Böhme 2021). Some jurisdictions such as The Bahamas, Nigeria and China, have launched their CBDCs. The cross-border dimension is being taken seriously by the G20 Road Map (FSB 2022) and being followed up by the BIS, given the potential for global trade instability of an extended use of stable-coins for this purpose. Several of these cross-border projects are discussed throughout this book and are detailed in the Appendices.
The salient features of the current monetary payments scene as it is evolving in digital forms are also explored, including the limited regulatory response of the state in most countries, and the general response of central banks, with several examples of CBDC approaches, within and across jurisdictions.
Contents
- Edited by Anthony Morgan
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- Book:
- What Matters Most
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- 23 January 2024
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- 18 May 2023, pp v-vi
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14 - Will artificial intelligence transform ethics?
- Edited by Anthony Morgan
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- What Matters Most
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- 23 January 2024
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- 18 May 2023, pp 125-130
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Artificial intelligence (AI) has generated a staggering amount of hype in the past several years. But is it the game-changer it has been cracked up to be? And, if so, how is it changing the game? John Zerilli's 2021 book, A Citizen's Guide to Artificial Intelligence, explores the implications of AI for our lives as citizens across a number of different domains, including political, legal and economic ones. In this conversation with Zerilli, Shannon Vallor, one of the world's leading AI ethicists, explores the interplay between the ethical and the political, the scope of AI ethics, the dangers posed by our increased reliance on AI systems, and much more.
Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Professor in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh. Her research explores how emerging technologies reshape human moral and intellectual character, and maps the ethical challenges and opportunities posed by new uses of data and artificial intelligence.
John Zerilli is the Chancellor's Fellow in AI, Data and the Rule of Law at Edinburgh Law School. His research interests include the interplay between cognitive science, artificial intelligence and the law.
John Zerilli (JZ): I am interested in addressing more than just what we would consider to be questions of an ethical nature pertaining to the individual and how they confront moral dilemmas in their own lives. So, my first question is about AI ethics as a discipline, and how it connects to politics. There is this meme that suggests that AI ethics really isn't a very interesting specialization at all, because the questions that pop up are just questions whose answers are uncontroversial. The meme states that, “The ethics of AI is no different from the ethics of a pencil”. The idea is that you shouldn't go around stabbing people with pencils, you shouldn't use pencils to write racist or sexist things, you shouldn't throw pencils at people, and so on. Similarly: don't be racist with AI technologies, don't be sexist, don't write and perpetuate discriminatory stereotypes using AI. Is there anything more to AI ethics than just this sort of bland vision?
10 - Decolonial ecologies
- Edited by Anthony Morgan
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- What Matters Most
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- 23 January 2024
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- 18 May 2023, pp 91-98
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Because of the work of researchers like Malcom Ferdinand, we are increasingly beginning to think of ecological issues as inseparable from anti-racist and anti-patriarchal demands for equality. This conversation coincided with the English language publication of Ferdinand's book Decolonial Ecology. Building around the idea of a politics of encounter, the conversation explores what a non-colonial way of being in relation with one another might look like, extending this vision to include non-humans and the earth itself. In the face of the growing storm of climate catastrophe, Ferdinand invites us to build a world-ship where humans and non-humans can live together on a bridge of justice and shape a common world.
Malcom Ferdinand is a researcher in political ecology and environmental humanities at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (IRISSO/University Paris Dauphine). He has published on topics such as climate justice and the struggle against the toxic legacies of slavery and colonialism.
Romy Opperman is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy at the New School for Social Research, New York. Her research bridges Africana, continental, decolonial, environmental and feminist philosophy to foreground issues of racism and colonialism for environmental ethics and justice.
Romy Opperman (RO): How do you understand “decolonial ecology”? I ask this in the context of your book, but also because the terms “decolonial” and “decolonizing” often get used quite freely within academia.
Malcom Ferdinand (MF): I titled my book Decolonial Ecology, and, as you point out, there are often confusions between the terms “decolonizing ecology” and “decolonial ecology”. To me, decolonial ecology argues that ecological issues are not separate from socio-political ones. So, I argue that the ecological imperative to preserve the ecosystem – for instance, to limit pollution and reduce biodiversity loss – should be fought together with what is often called the “decolonial demand”; that is, the anti-racist demand for equality and to be treated fairly. The goal of decolonial ecology is to think them together. I am not the first one to bring these two ideas together, but the reason why I make this connection – and especially in the context of France where I live and work, and where the book was first published – is because ecological issues have typically been thought of as separate from the anti-racist movement, from Afro-feminist demands, and even, to some extent, from the struggle against gender discrimination.
18 - We and the robots
- Edited by Anthony Morgan
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- What Matters Most
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 23 January 2024
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- 18 May 2023, pp 163-170
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We are living through an era of increased robotization, with robots becoming integrated into settings such as factories, hospitals, transportation systems, military, workplaces, households and healthcare. But what are the social and moral implications arising from our interpersonal connections with robots? Can robots have significant moral status? Can we be friends with a robot? When your robot lover tells you that it loves you, should you believe it? In this conversation, philosopher of technology John Danaher considers whether we are robots ourselves; whether we should understand our relationships with robots by analogy with non-human animals; whether robot friendships can complement and possibly enhance human friendships; whether robots have an inner life; whether robots are capable of deceiving us; and much more.
JOHN DANAHER is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway. He researches on a wide range of topics at the interface of philosophy, law and technology, and he is host of the popular “Philosophical Disquisitions” podcast.
ANTHONY MORGAN is editor of The Philosopher and commissioning editor for philosophy at Agenda Publishing.
Anthony Morgan (AM): In an interview, the philosopher Kevin O’Regan said that he believes he is a robot, and, furthermore, that people get upset when he tells them that they are robots because they feel that they’re persons and not robots. He goes on to say that the fact that he is a robot doesn't mean that he doesn't suffer pain or fall in love or appreciate art. It just means that there are no “magical mechanisms” explaining these phenomena, such as free will. What insights do you think we can glean from thinking about whether we are robots ourselves?
John Danaher (JD): I consider our world to be a collection of mechanistic structures knitted together in very complicated ways, and so we are in principle very sophisticated mechanisms. Hence if we can create mechanisms that are as sophisticated as us – they may not be exactly functionally equivalent but they may behave and act in much the same way – then they can have all the qualities and attributes that we have, and possibly others too. Thus there's no reason for me to think that we can't create general artificial intelligence or robots that are effectively the same as humans.
5 - Iris Marion Young and structural injustice
- Edited by Anthony Morgan
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- Book:
- What Matters Most
- Published by:
- Agenda Publishing
- Published online:
- 23 January 2024
- Print publication:
- 18 May 2023, pp 37-46
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- Chapter
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Summary
According to traditional theories of responsibility, we would not think that western consumers have any responsibility for the exploitation of sweatshop workers, as we are not connected to them in a way that moral philosophy has typically been able to understand. Iris Marion Young, however, wanted to make sense of the kind of responsibility that western activists felt when protesting global injustices. This led to her model of structural injustice and our responsibility for structural injustice. This conversation between two scholars of Young's work offers a clear overview of Young's diverse and influential philosophical output. McKeown and Nuti explore questions such as: are corporations to blame for their unjust practices? How do individuals assume responsibility for structural injustice without feeling completely powerless in the face of so many injustices? What is the relationship between activism and political theory?
MAEVE MCKEOWN is Assistant Professor in Political Theory at the interdisciplinary faculty Campus Fryslân, University of Groningen. Her current research focuses on individuals’ responsibilities for global injustice.
ALASIA NUTI is a lecturer in the department of politics at the University of York. She works in contemporary political theory and gender studies, and has a strong interest in postcolonial theory and critical race theory.
ALASIA NUTI (AN): Who was Iris Marion Young and why has she become this very important political philosopher. Also, when and how did you come across her work, and what do you find so appealing in her writings?
Maeve McKeown (MM): Iris Marion Young is the greatest! Anyone who is interested in philosophy, political theory, or feminism, needs to read her work. She was born in 1949 and died in 2006 at the age of 56, which was a big loss for the political theory community. She contributed to pretty much every area of contemporary political theory: in her early work she dealt with justice theory, democratic theory, feminist phenomenology, and Marxist feminism, and in her later work, structural injustice and global political issues. She seemed to enter a research area in political theory, say some amazing things, and then move onto another area! While she was certainly a big name in academia, especially after her 1990 book Justice and the Politics of Difference, it is only in the last 15 years that her work has taken on a life of its own to the extent that she has almost become part of the canon.