Agent-based modeling for benchmarking banking regulation regimes: Application for the CBDC

COVID-19 pandemic challenges the sustainability of the modern financial system. International central bankers claim that banks are solid. They have accumulated significant capital buffers. Those buffers should be further more augmented by 2027 in line with Basel III reforms. However, disregarding such a consecutive rise in the banking capital adequacy requirements, the US financial authorities undertook an unprecedented step. First time in the country history they lowered the reserve requirement to zero at the end of March 2020. Friedrich von Hayek demonstrated the fragility of the modern fractional reserve banking systems. Together with Ludwig von Mises (von Mises, 1978) he was thus able to predict the Great Depression of 1929 and explain its mechanics much in advance. Thus, we wish to utilize the agent-based modeling technique to extend von Hayek’s rationale to the previously unstudied interaction of capital adequacy and reserve requirement regulation. We find that the full reserve requirement regime even without capital adequacy regulation provides more stable financial environment than the existing one. Rise in capital adequacy adds to modern banking sustainability, but it still preserves the system remarkably fragile compared to the full reserve requirement. We also prove that capital adequacy regulation is redundant when the latter environment is in place. We discuss our findings application to the potential Central Bank Digital Currencies regulation.

UANG DAN MONETER ISLAM DALAM SISTEM MONETER GANDA DI INDONESIA

The Islamic monetary system in the dual monetary system has not been able to avoid the use of conventional banking instruments, namely the fiat money and fractional reserve banking (FRB) system and only the profit-sharing system that can be applied instead of the interest system. The purpose of this study is to analyze money and the role of the Islamic monetary system in the dual monetary system. This study applies qualitative descriptive analysis by literature study. The results show that Islamic monetary with flow concept and economic value of time can play a role in the dual monetary system in Indonesia by encouraging investment, production and distribution, as well as the application of sharia contracts and the imposition of zakat. The research is expected to be useful for the monetary authorities to activate Islamic financial institutions in order to increase their role in the monetary system in Indonesia.

ISLAMIC ENDOGENOUS MONEY: EVIDENCE FROM ISLAMIC BANKING SYSTEM IN INDONESIA AND MALAYSIA

This research is conducted due to the un-ware contemporary Muslim economists on the feature of money whether exogenous or endogenous. Arguing that money in Islam should be endogenous, Choudhury (1997) asserts that fiat and fractional reserve systems makes money exogenous. If it is true, this condition leads to the un-oriented development of Islamic monetary and financial systems that are basically is fiat and fractional reserve systems. Accordingly, the empirical studies on Islamic monetary policy in Islamic financial system that is based on exogenous money concept cannot reveal the true money supply for the economy. This paper aims to propose the theoretical model of endogenous Islamic money and conduct an empirical study of the model on Islamic banking that is based on fiat and fractional reserve systems. The empirical method used is based on the ARDL and ECM. The result of the research gives evidence that the profit and loss sharing system is a core feature of the Islamic endogenous money system in the fractional reserve requirement system. Other evidence reveals that the development of the Islamic financial system can minimize the existence of exogenous money in a fiat monetary system. By these results, this study argues that Islamic endogenous money system can be developed in fiat and fractional reserve banking systems through the profit and loss sharing systems.

A Digital Currency Architecture for Privacy and Owner-Custodianship

In recent years, electronic retail payment mechanisms, especially e-commerce and card payments at the point of sale, have increasingly replaced cash in many developed countries. As a result, societies are losing a critical public retail payment option, and retail consumers are losing important rights associated with using cash. To address this concern, we propose an approach to digital currency that would allow people without banking relationships to transact electronically and privately, including both e-commerce purchases and point-of-sale purchases that are required to be cashless. Our proposal introduces a government-backed, privately-operated digital currency infrastructure to ensure that every transaction is registered by a bank or money services business, and it relies upon non-custodial wallets backed by privacy-enhancing technology, such as blind signatures or zero-knowledge proofs, to ensure that transaction counterparties are not revealed. Our approach to digital currency can also facilitate more efficient and transparent clearing, settlement, and management of systemic risk. We argue that our system can restore and preserve the salient features of cash, including privacy, owner-custodianship, fungibility, and accessibility, while also preserving fractional reserve banking and the existing two-tiered banking system. We also show that it is possible to introduce regulation of digital currency transactions involving non-custodial wallets that unconditionally protect the privacy of end-users.

Considerations on Fractional Reserve Banking and Free-Banking

In this article, our goal is to examine a controversy very dear to Austrian economists: that of the legitimacy of the fractional reserve banking system, defined as a system in which the bankers keep in their vaults a quantity of money (narrowly defined) lower than the quantity of cash deposits granted to their clients. In the Austrian vision, the monetary supply, broadly defined (Mises, 1971), consists of money properly said, plus monetary substitutes (bank notes, cash deposits), plus credit-money, this one corresponding to any future right to a monetary sum (time deposits, promissory notes, pre-fixed derivatives). In a narrow sense, money supply consists in money properly said (fiat-money or commodity money). We must, however, clarify some aspects of the money supply. Monetary substitutes have their origin in the monetary certificates. Monetary certificates, in their turn, are tools utilized to confer information about the medium of exchange. For instance, precious metal coins mintage confers information about the metal’s purity and about the weight of the coin; bank notes and current account balances confer information about the amount, overseer and proprietor of the deposited money. So, money certificates can change the agents’ valuations concerning the particular good in question, even being able of independent valuation. Monetary certificates can be physically connected to the medium of exchange or separated from it. In the case of physically connected monetary certificates, we have what we normally call monetary substitutes. Monetary substitutes can, due to their nature, work as property titles to the very medium of exchange. Contemporaneously, monetary substitutes usually can be identified with cash deposits (current account balances) and paper checks, provided that the use of bank notes is increasingly rare. Having made those clarifications concerning monetary substitutes, we will, following Mises (1971, p. 135), call fiduciary media the quantity of monetary substitutes that exceeds the quantity of money properly said. However, before proceeding with our Investigation about the consequences of the legalization of the production of fake monetary substitutes (fiduciary media), we must explain what would be a fake monetary substitute and the nature of this counterfeiting. We must, therefore, start our argumentation establishing some differences about the nature of loan and deposit contracts [x].

The Chicago Plan Revisited: An Austrian critique

Within the context of the economic crisis since 2007 a space for fundamental reflection on the institutional structure of the finan-cial system has been opened, allowing for the introduction of sig-nificant reform proposals in the economic discourse. The IMF economists Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof published a work-ing paper in August 2012, reintroducing the Chicago Plan as such a proposal.2 Following up the work of Irving Fisher (1935)3 the au-thors propose the separation of the monetary and the credit func-tions of the banking system, by requiring 100% reserve backing for deposits. This plan is designed to eliminate the possibilities for private banks to create money through fractional reserve banking and is supposed to give governments the complete control over money issuance. The central bank, upgraded as a powerful mone-tary commission, is seen as the best candidate to serve as a state’s monetary authority in the exercise of its monetary prerogative (monopoly of currency, money issuance, and seigniorage). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the ele-ments of this reform proposal, contrast it with a recapitulatory display of the Austrian analysis and evaluate the plan based on its political desirability. In the first step, the original plan from 1935 by Irving Fisher is presented. Second, the newest version and the key findings of Ben-es and Kumhof are summarized. Third the Austrian critique of fractional reserve banking and central banking is laid out. In the fourth step, a response to a peculiarity of the working paper about the origin of money is offered. In conclusion a brief discussion on the likelihood of political implementation and the evaluation from the Austrian perspective close the argumentation.

Intervención coactiva en el mercado: procesos, modalidades y efectos

Developing Böhm-Bawerk’s (1914) Macht oder ökonomisches Ge-setz, we characterize the different intervention modalities as coercive «fixing» of prices, goods (quantities or modes of performing) or persons, also with their effects. Given that the subjective but real forces underlying market processes respond with effects which are opposite to those pursued, the «intervener» or controller would be induced to an in crescendo «fixing» of more and more as-pects of reality. We also show fractional reserve (banking) as another kind of intervention, since it produces or induces the same effects, including a call to implement monopolistic schemes. Key words: Market Process, Böhm-Bawerk, Intervention, Rothbard, Fractional Reserve JEL Classification: B41, B53, D42, D43, D45, L43, L51, G01 Resumen: En desarrollo del trabajo póstumo de Böhm-Bawerk (1914) Macht oder ökonomisches Gesetz, se caracterizan los diferentes tipos de intervención en tanto que «fijación» coactiva de precios, bienes (cantidades o modos de hacer) o personas, junto con sus efectos correspondientes. Como las fuerzas subjetivas pero reales que mueven los procesos de mercado originan efectos contrarios a los eventualmente deseados, el«interventor» se ve inducido a fijar sucesivamente cada vez más aspectos de la realidad. También se muestra a la reserva fraccionaria como otra modalidad más, que produce e induce los mismos efectos, incluido la llamada a implementar esquemas monopolísticos Palabras clave: Proceso de Mercado, Böhm-Bawerk, Intervención, Rothbard, Reserva Fraccionaria Clasificación JEL: B41, B53, D42, D43, D45, L43, L51, G01

The Wisselbank and Amsterdam Price Volatility: A fractal test of the Austrian fractional-reserve banking hypothesis

Using 1708-1788 historical data, we test the Austrian hypothesis that fractional-reserve banking destabilizes commodity prices, complicating eco­ nomic calculation and entrepreneurial planning, and contributes to boom-bust cycles. The Bank of Amsterdam («Wisselbank», 1609-1819) maintained high reserve requirements until the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784), when its reserve ratio plummeted from nearly 100% in 1778 to around 20% by 1788. We compare price volatilities for 1722-1779 and 1780-1788 using fractal Hurst exponents. For all commodity prices tested, fractal volatility was higher during the lower fractional reserve period, except for rye, wheat, and Hamburg Bills of Exchange. Bill of Exchange stability was likely attributable to Hamburg transport ships’ ability to evade British incursion and to the Wisselbank’s legal monopsony in the secondary commercial paper market. However, rye and wheat prices — directly indicative of bread prices — generally (and contrary to Austrian theory) stabilized even though British blockades significantly re­ duced Dutch bread grain imports. We attribute this unexpected result primarily to emergency wartime provision by the Amsterdam municipal granary. The Wisselbank experience may confirm, or at least does not clearly falsify, the economic relevance of the Austrian Fractional-Reserve Banking Hypothesis. Keywords: Fractional reserve banking, monetary expansion, price stability, equilibrium. JEL Codes: E42, E44, N13, N23, N83. Resumen: Analizando los datos históricos correspondientes al Banco de Áms­ terdam de 1708 a 1788 concluimos que la evidencia empírica confirma (o al menos no refuta) la hipótesis austriaca sobre los negativos efectos de la banca con reserve fraccionaria. Palabras clave: Banca con reserva fraccionaria, expansión monetaria, estabili­ dad de precios, equilibrio. Clasificación JEL: E42, E44, N13, N23, N83.

How to create a banking & monetary system for the 21st century: the Huerta de Soto and Chicago plans reworked

Every economics textbook will tell you that banking is at its core a process of intermediation designed to facilitate the transfer of savings into investment. In some respects fractional reserve banking does this much too well. It is a system which takes deposits and lends them out. The problem is that this process is built on – for want of a better word – deceit. Borrowers are offered secure term contracts, while depositors are promised their money back whenever they want it. This deceit only works because most depositors are happy to keep their money in the banking system most of the time. Supporters of fractional reserve banking would say – so what. The fact that the system exploits this trait of depositors – to keep their money in banks rather than under their mattresses – is surely a good thing. Without such a system, lending would not happen to anywhere near the same degree, credit creation would be severely impeded and economic activity adversely affected. The problem with this system is that it has a tendency to max out on credit creation in the good times, but chronically undersupply credit in the bad times – thus greatly accentuating the natural ups and downs of the business cycle. And over a course of time, it results in an accumulation of debt in society that is not economically very healthy. Recent events underline these concerns. Any proposed reform of the banking and monetary system needs to be able to illustrate that such a system will be capable of delivering the «right amount» of credit in good times and bad – so as not to impede economic activity in downturns, but also not to act as an accelerator for the good times. We can refer to this as the «optimal» quantity of credit over the course of the business cycle. In this paper, I assess two models. One is a derivative of the so-called «Chicago Plan», and set out in the IMF Working Paper by Michael Kumhof and Jaromir Benes titled The Chicago Plan Revisited published in August 2012. The other is an equity-based proposal which I call the «Huerta de Soto Plan», and derived from proposals set out by Professor Jesus Huerta de Soto in his book Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles, published as far back as 1998. The Kumhof/Benes proposal puts monetary policy at the heart of the credit creation process in a way that is far more effective than under the current system. Governments end up achieving far greater control of the levers of monetary power than under today’s fractional reserve system. By contrast, the Huerta de Soto Plan opts for a free-market based approach to money resulting in a free and genuinely open market for credit that is driven entirely by the forces of competition and where governments and central banks have no role to play in monetary policy. This paper spells out the mechanics underlying both plans, and assesses their relative merits. Neither plan is perfect. Both propose extremely radical reform of the modern monetary system, and they can result in – I believe – some potentially very inflationary and damaging behavioral effects in the process of the transition from the present system to what is proposed. The Kumhof/Benes proposal is far and away the weaker of the two – not only would it be economically and politically unworkable – the behavioral consequences would be harder to control. By contrast, the Huerta de Soto Plan – although more radical in many respects – would also be more palatable, albeit it would need certain tweaks, and the adverse behavioral impacts arising from the implementation of this plan would be somewhat easier to offset. Key words: Huerta de Soto, Kumhof/Benes, Chicago Plan, Fractional Reser-ve, Mutuals, Quantitative Easing. JEL Classification: B31, B53, E42, E52.

Intertemporal discoordination in the 100% reserve banking system

The 100%-Money plan advocated by Fisher (1936) has a Misesian flavor as it aims at mitigating intertemporal discoordination by reducing (i) the discrepancy between investment and voluntary savings, and (ii) the manipula­ tion of interest rates by monetary injections. Recent proposals to adopt the 100% reserve banking system, such as the Chicago Plan Revisited by Benes and Kumhof (2013) or the Limited Purpose Banking by Kotlikoff (2010), take, however, a fundamentally different attitude towards the role of the central bank in the credit market and ignore that intertemporal discoordination arises inde­ pendently from whether the credit expansion is financed by the creation of outside or inside money. These plans allow the central bank to inject outside money into the credit market and to effectively lower interest rates in negative territory in order to overcome the limit that the liquidity trap sets to credit expan­ sion in the fractional reserve system. Although such an attempt may succeed in stimulating the economy in the short run, it exacerbates intertemporal discoor­ dination and weakens economic stability in the long run. Key words: monetary systems, 100% reserve banking, Chicago Plan, Austrian Business Cycle Theory. JEL Classification: E30, E42, E58, B53. Resumen: El plan «dinero 100%» defendido por Fisher (1936) tiene connotacio­ nes misianas en el sentido en que tiene como objetivo mitigar la descoordinación intertemporal reduciendo (i) la diferencia entre la inversión y el ahorro voluntario y (ii) la manipulación de los tipos de interés a través de inyecciones de dinero. Las recientes propuestas para adoptar un sistema de coficiente de reservas ban­ carias del 100%, tales como el Chicago Plan Revisited de Benes y Kumhof (2013) o el Limited Purpose Banking de Kotlikoff (2010), toman, sin embargo, una actitud esencialmente diferente hacia el papel del banco central en el mercado de cré­ dito, e ignora que la descoordinación intertemporal surge independientemente de si la expansión crediticia se financia mediante la creación de dinero desde dentro (inside money) o fuera (outside money). Estos planes permiten al banco central inyectar dinero desde fuera en el mercado de crédito y reducir los tipos de interés de manera efectiva en valores negativos con el fin de superar el límite que establece la trampa de la liquidez a la expansión del crédito en el sistema de reserva fraccionaria. Aunque tal intento puede tener éxito a la hora de esti­ mular la economía en el corto plazo, acentúa la descoordinación intertemporal y debilita la estabilidad económica a largo plazo. Palabras clave: Sistemas monetarios, banca de reserva del 100%, Plan Chica­ go, teoría austriaca del ciclo económico. Clasificación JEL: E30, E42, E58, B53.