Outreach
In late 2022 I surveyed the state of domestic wholesale CBDC pilots across the world. Various central banks - often in conjunction with the BIS - had run trials by this point, yet the wholesale aspect of CBDC was under-discussed, relative to retail. In response to a gap in the literature, I wrote this dry but hopefully useful piece. At the time, central banks had progressed from their initially basic experiments with transactions on blockchains, through re-implementing large value settlement (PvP and DvP), to the beginnings of more elaborate explorations of how wCBDC might integrate within the broader tradfi and defi systems.
While at the SF Fed I produced various "economic letters" intended for the broader public, explaining various economic concepts or the thrust of my own papers in less technical, more accessible form:
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While a fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research I became involved with an interesting and worthwhile project organized under the auspices of Llewellyn Consulting and Gatehouse Advisory Partners. This entailed the publication of a collection of brief essays, on important areas of policy that require re-thinking in the coming years, partly, but not exclusively motivated by Brexit. Each chapter was written by an eminent subject expert and received coverage in The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Sunday Times. Many of the contributors now collaborate under the banner of The Policy Reform Group.
Response to BoE systemic stablecoin consultation
The Bank of England launched a consultation on systemic stablecoins in 2023. The consultation was open to all, and I selected a subset of the questions they posed, where I felt a) I knew enough to comment and b) the Bank may have gone somewhat astray. Naturally, there are enormous uncertainties surrounding stablecoin and how they should be regulated, so reasonable people can disagree in this area. However, I felt the Bank was in some ways being too risk averse in the set of backing models they were considering - with possibly severe implications for the incentives for the private sector to innovate and improve stablecoin (and digital custody) technology. I also felt they were too reluctant to consider reasonable ways in which they could enhance the publicly provided infrastructure, such as in providing liquidity facilities.