Janet Jiang is the Research Director of the Research Team in the Banking and Payments Department. Janet obtained her PhD in Economics from Simon Fraser University in 2007. She builds theoretical models and runs surveys and controlled laboratory experiments to study inflation, asset trading, bank runs, currency competition, payment competition and central bank digital currencies. Her work has been published in Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Economic Theory, Review of Economic Dynamics, Canadian Journal of Economics, European Economic Review, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, and Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.
This note discusses insights from historical launches of new payment methods and related laboratory experiments on the potential adoption and use of a central bank digital currency in the Canadian context.
We review the nascent but fast-growing literature on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), focusing on their potential impacts on private banks. We evaluate these impacts in three areas of traditional banking: payments, lending and liquidity and maturity transformation. We also take a broader look at CBDCs and highlight two promising directions for future research.
We conduct surveys to study how consumer spending responds to higher inflation expectations. Most respondents spend the same, sticking to fixed budget plans or not considering inflation for spending decisions. About 20% decrease spending because they feel poorer and cut spending to invest in inflation-proof assets. Very few increase spending.
We study the trading of an asset with bankruptcy risk. The traded price of the asset is, on average, 40% of the expected total dividend payments. We investigate which economic models can explain the low traded price.
We investigate the effect of inflation on output and welfare in the laboratory. Consistent with monetary theory, we find that inflation acts as a tax on monetary exchange and reduces output and welfare.
Standard monetary models adopt an infinite horizon with discounting. Testing these models in the lab requires implementing this horizon within a limited time frame. We compare three approaches to such an implementation and discuss their relative advantages.
Many central banks are considering issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). This would introduce a new policy tool—interest on CBDC. We investigate how this new tool would interact with traditional monetary policy tools, such as the interest on central bank reserves.
In a cashless economy, would the private sector invest in the optimal level of safety in a deposit-based payment system? In general, because of externalities, the answer is no. While the private sector could over- or under-invest in safety, the government can use taxes or subsidies to correct private incentives.
We show that issuing a deposit-like central bank digital currency (CBDC) with a proper interest rate would encourage banks to pay higher interest to keep their customers. Banks would then attract more deposits and offer more loans. Hence, a CBDC would not necessarily crowd out private banking.
We investigate competition between two intrinsically worthless currencies as a result of decentralized interactions between human subjects. We design a laboratory experiment based on a simple two-country, two-currency search model to study factors that affect circulation patterns and equilibrium selection.
We model the introduction of a new payment method, e.g., e-money, that competes with an existing payment method, e.g., cash. The new payment method involves relatively lower per-transaction costs for both buyers and sellers, but sellers must pay a fixed fee to accept the new payment method.
"Adoption of a New Payment Method: Evidence from the Laboratory", (with Jasmina Arifovic and John Duffy), 2023, European Economic Review 104410.
"Inflation, Output and Welfare in the Laboratory", (with Daniela Puzzello and Cathy Zhang), 2023, European Economic Review, 152.
"Bank Market Power and Central Bank Digital Currency: Theory and Quantitative Assessment", (with Jonathan Chiu, Mohammad Davoodalhosseini and Yu Zhu), 2023, Journal of Political Economy, 131.
"How Long is Forever in the Laboratory? Three Implementations of an Infinite-Horizon Monetary Economy", (with Daniela Puzzello and Cathy Zhang), 2021, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 184, 278-301.
"The Cash Paradox", (with Enchuan Shao), 2020, Review of Economic Dynamics, 36, 177-197.
"Strategic Uncertainty and the Power of Extrinsic Signals – Evidence from an Experimental Study of Bank Runs", (with Jasmina Arifovic), 2019, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization , 167, 1-17.
"Competing Currencies in the Laboratory", (with Cathy Zhang), 2018, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 154(C), 253-280.
"Interest on Cash, Fundamental Value Process and Bubble Formation: An Experimental Study", (with Giovanni Giusti and Yiping Xu), 2016, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 11(C), 44-51.
"Money and Price Posting under Private Information", (with Mei Dong), 2014, Journal of Economic Theory, 150, 740-777.
"Experimental Evidence of Bank Runs as Pure Coordination Failures", (with Jasmina Arifovic and Yiping Xu), 2013, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 37, 2446-2465.
"One or Two Monies?", (with Mei Dong), 2010, Journal of Monetary Economics, 57, 439-450.
"Banking Crises in Monetary Economies", 2008, Canadian Journal of Economics, 41, 80-104.
Other
"Is Money Essential? An Experimental Approach", (with Peter Norman, Daniela Puzzello, Bruno Sultanum and Randall Wright), R&R at Journal of Political Economy.
"Pricing Indefinitely Lived Assets: Experimental Evidence", (with John Duffy and Huan Xie), R&R at Management Science.
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