ECONOMICS ALUMNI NEWSLETTER

Jay Henry, Matias Henry, Pilar Henry, Christopher Waller, Allan Herbert
The Henry Family Endowed
Speaker Series in Economics
The Department of Economics is very pleased to announce a new annual
speaker series made possible through a generous gift from Pilar and John
Henry. The series will showcase nationally and internationally recognized
economists, who will deliver seminars related to their research and
current trends. The intent of the award is to foster intellectual dialogue
among the University of Miami community.
The series kicked off on April 19, 2023, with Federal Reserve Governor
Christopher J. Waller, whose talk was entitled “Demystifying Central Bank
Digital Currency.” The topic was timely since there has been much
discussion recently on whether the Federal Reserve is on the cusp of
introducing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Fears along this
dimension were evidently precipitated by the Federal Reserve announcing
a launch date for its new faster payment service, FedNow. As Governor
Waller explained, FedNow is not a CBDC—it is simply a platform designed
to make payments clear and settle more rapidly via the current payment
system, which operates primarily through banks.
This still leaves the question of what exactly a CBDC is or might entail.
Governor Waller suggested we think of CBDC as a fully-insured checking
account with the Fed—our nation’s central bank—instead of a regular
bank. This description certainly had the effect of removing much of the
mystery! On the issue of whether the government might have too much
information on private transactions, he explained how this concern could
be addressed with a “synthetic” version of CBDC that operates through
private banks instead of the Fed. At the end of the day, however, the
Governor seemed skeptical that a CBDC for the United States is something
worth pursuing. A link to Governor Waller’s presentation is available here:
https://spaces.hightail.com/space/HirLgnmGSO