The use of cash and cheques in making payments is in decline and digital means of payment – credit and debit cards, mobile phones etc.—are on the rise. There are proposals around the world for the central bank to issue a digital currency (central bank digital currency CBDC) to largely or wholly replace cash. I’ll be talking about the proposals from the Bank of England and what impacts that could have on public and use of cash, financial inclusion/exclusion, banks and the financing of government expenditure.

CBDCs can be seen as State response to the private cryptocurrencies from Bitcoin onwards. I’ll be looking at the history of cryptocurrencies, who has profited and who has lost out, and asking whether they should be termed currency and whether one (or more) of them could develop into fully fledged money.

The implications of digital currencies for the relationship between the State and money, and for international transactions also explored.

About the Speaker
Malcolm Sawyer is Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Leeds previously Professor of Economics, University of Leeds, and University of York. In ‘retirement’, he continues to pursue economic research on a range of topics including fiscal policies and alternatives to austerity, policies for full employment, financialisation, ecological macroeconomics, economics of stagnation and monetary policy. He was the lead co-ordinator for the EU funded 8 million euro, 15 partner, five year project on Financialisation Economy Society and Sustainable Development (www.fessud.eu). He has authored 13 books including Can the Euro Survive?, Polity Press, and most recently Financialization: Economic and Social Impacts Agenda. He was managing editor of International Review of Applied Economics for over 30 years. He has edited or co-edited over 30 books. He has published over 140 papers in refereed journals and contributed over 160 book chapters on a wide range of topics.