Category Archives: Uncategorized
Monetizing Privacy with Central Bank Digital Currencies (November 23, 2020)
In prior research, we documented evidence suggesting that digital payment adoptions have accelerated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. While digitalization of payment activity improves data utilization by firms, it can also infringe upon consumers’ right to privacy. Drawing from … Continue reading
COVID-19 and the Search for Digital Alternatives to Cash (September 28, 2020)
Today, the majority of retail payments in the United States are digital. Practically all digital payments are tracked, collected, and aggregated by financial institutions, payment providers, and vendors. This trend has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic as payments that require physical contact, such … Continue reading
Token- or Account-Based? A Digital Currency Can Be Both (August 12, 2020)
Digital currencies, including potential central bank digital currencies (CBDC), have generated a lot of interest over the past decade, since the emergence of Bitcoin. The interest has only grown in recent months because of a desire for contactless payment methods, … Continue reading
A Distributed Version of Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets (September 1, 2015)
The 2012 Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley for their work on matching problems. Two-sided matching problems, like assigning jobs to workers or dorm rooms to students, can be complicated enough. But … Continue reading
Entry and Exit Leads to Zero Profit for Bitcoin Miners (August 28, 2015)
In a previous post, we discussed bitcoin miners’ incentives to undertake a 51 percent attack given the current condition of the bitcoin market. We also speculated that high profits and free entry would cause more miners to enter the market, … Continue reading