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Monetary Policy with a Central Bank Digital Currency: The Short and the Long Term
(2020)CEPR Discussion PapersWe examine how the introduction of an interest-bearing central bank digital currency (CBDC) impacts bank activities and monetary policy. Depositors can switch from bank deposits to CBDC as a safe medium of exchange at any time. As banks face digital runs, either because depositors have a preference for CBDC or fear bank insolvency, monetary policy can use collateral requirements (and default penalties) to initially increase bankers' ...Working Paper -
Semi-flexible Majority Rules for Public Good Provision
(2020)CEPR Discussion PapersWe introduce semi-flexible majority rules for public good provision with private valuations. Such rules take the form of a two-stage, multiple-round voting mechanism where the output of the first stage is the default alternative for the second stage and the voting thresholds (a) vary with the proposal on the table and (b) require a qualified majority for final approval in the second stage. We show that the (detail-free) mechanism elicits ...Working Paper -
Appointed Learning for the Common Good: Optimal Committee Sitze and Efficient Rewards
(2020)CEPR Discussion PapersA population of identical individuals must choose one of two alternatives under uncertainty about what the right alternative is. Individuals can gather information of increasing accuracy at an increasing convex utility cost. For such a setup, we analyze how vote delegation to a committee and suitable monetary transfers for its members can ensure that high or optimal levels of information are (jointly) acquired. Our main insight is that ...Working Paper -
A Refunding Scheme to Incentivize Narrow-spectrum Antibiotic Development
(2020)CEPR Discussion PapersStarting from a general framework for the study of antibiotic-resistance, we introduce a market-based refunding scheme that incentivizes companies to develop antibiotics against resistant bacteria and, in particular, narrow-spectrum antibiotics that target specific resistant bacterial strains. Successful companies can claim a refund from a newly-established antibiotics fund that partially covers their development costs. The refund involves ...Working Paper -
Policy Reforms and the Amount of Checks & Balances
(2022)Economics Working Paper SeriesWe examine how democracies choose their amount of checks and balances (C&B). For this purpose, we consider a simple model of political competition with costly policy reforms. The cost of a marginal reform is determined endogenously at the constitutional phase—i.e. before policies are chosen—through the choice of (the amount of) C&B. We characterize the set of stable C&B for different constitutional rules which vary depending on (i) who ...Working Paper -
Staking Pools on Blockchains
(2022)CEPR Discussion PapersOn several proof-of-stake blockchains, agents engaged in validating transactions can open a pool to which others can delegate their stake in order to earn higher returns. We develop a model of staking pool formation in the presence of malicious agents and establish existence and uniqueness of equilibria. We then identify potential and risk of staking pools. First, allowing for staking pools lowers blockchain security. Yet, honest stake ...Working Paper -
New Forms of Democracy
(2022)CESifo Working PapersIn the third decade of the 21st century, digitization, global events, challenges from authoritarian states, and difficulties of particular democracies to function properly confront democracy with a new series of challenges and opportunities that will force it to reinvent itself. The last decades have produced an accelerating flow of ideas for new forms of democracy. We survey a long period in the quest for such new forms and point to next ...Working Paper -
Artificial Intelligence as Self-learning Capital
(2022)CEPR Discussion PapersWe model Artificial Intelligence (AI) as self-learning capital: Its productivity rises by its use and by training with data. In a three-sector model, an AI sector and an applied research (AR) sector produce intermediates for a final good firm and compete for high-skilled workers. AR development benefits from inter-temporal spillovers and knowledge spillovers of agents working in AI, and AI benefits from application gains through its use ...Working Paper -
Public Debt and the Balance Sheet of the Private Sector
(2022)CEPR Discussion PapersThis paper studies the sustainability and distributive effects of fiscal policy in a simple model with incomplete financial markets and heterogeneous agents. The model features households and firms, which face non-insurable idiosyncratic productivity shocks. There is only one financial asset, namely risk free debt, issued by the firms and the government, and bought by households. Higher government debt changes the balance sheet of the ...Working Paper -
Risky Vote Delegation
(2022)CEPR Discussion PapersWe study vote delegation and compare it with conventional voting. Typical examples for vote delegation are validation or governance tasks on blockchains and liquid democracy. There is a majority of "well-behaving" agents, but they may abstain or delegate their vote to other agents since voting is costly. "Misbehaving" agents always vote. Preferences of agents are private information and a positive outcome is achieved if well-behaving ...Working Paper