Charles W. Calomiris is UATX’s fmr. Director of the Center for Politics, Economics, and History. Prior to joining UATX, Calomiris served as the Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia Business School and a Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Calomiris is a member of the Financial Economists Roundtable and the Shadow Open Market Committee. Calomiris served as Chief Economist and Senior Deputy Comptroller at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and has been a visiting scholar or consultant to many central banks and regulatory agencies. Calomiris is the author of many books, including Fragile By Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit (with Stephen Haber), Reforming Financial Regulation After Dodd-Frank, and two edited volumes: Rules for the Lender of Last Resort and Assessing Banking Regulation During the Obama Era. He is currently working on a book entitled Useless History and the Future of Banking.
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Episode 438
Charles Calomiris
How Stablecoins Will Transform Banking | Charles Calomiris
Charles W. Calomiris is UATX’s fmr. Director of the Center for Politics, Economics, and History. Prior to joining UATX, Calomiris served as the Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia Business School and a Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Calomiris is a member of the Financial Economists Roundtable and the Shadow Open Market Committee. Calomiris served as Chief Economist and Senior Deputy Comptroller at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and has been a visiting scholar or consultant to many central banks and regulatory agencies. Calomiris is the author of many books, including Fragile By Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit (with Stephen Haber), Reforming Financial Regulation After Dodd-Frank, and two edited volumes: Rules for the Lender of Last Resort and Assessing Banking Regulation During the Obama Era. He is currently working on a book entitled Useless History and the Future of Banking.
In Episode 438 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Charles Calomiris, former Chief Economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, about his forthcoming paper “How Stablecoins Will Transform Banking,” which is based on a presentation he delivered at the Hoover Institution’s annual monetary policy conference this past May.
Demetri and Charles Calomiris spend the first hour of their conversation laying out what stablecoins are and why Calomiris believes they are poised to transform our standard units of account through a revolution in real-time payments and a wholesale reinvention of the banking system, monetary policy, and the role of the dollar internationally.
They discuss the significance of the recently signed “Genius Act,” explore the importance of bank charter modernization, and consider the broad public benefits of separating loans from deposits—ranging from faster, programmable settlement and greater competition in financial services to a reduction of systemic risk in areas where bank lending has become increasingly overconcentrated.
The second hour is devoted to exploring some of the most important short- and long-term implications of stablecoin adoption, including:
(1) Antitrust concerns over natural monopolies and network effects in stablecoin payment rails.
(2) Near-term boost to demand for U.S. government debt, including the potential issuance of tokenized bills for gross real-time settlement.
(3) Longer-term prospect of moving away from the dollar as the primary unit of account toward consumer bundles tied to assets, goods, and services that better reflect people’s spending patterns—along with the implications for monetary policy, seigniorage, capital flows, and the preservation of purchasing power in these new currencies.
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Charles W. Calomiris is UATX’s fmr. Director of the Center for Politics, Economics, and History. Prior to joining UATX, Calomiris served as the Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia Business School and a Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Calomiris is a member of the Financial Economists Roundtable and the Shadow Open Market Committee. Calomiris served as Chief Economist and Senior Deputy Comptroller at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and has been a visiting scholar or consultant to many central banks and regulatory agencies. Calomiris is the author of many books, including Fragile By Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit (with Stephen Haber), Reforming Financial Regulation After Dodd-Frank, and two edited volumes: Rules for the Lender of Last Resort and Assessing Banking Regulation During the Obama Era. He is currently working on a book entitled Useless History and the Future of Banking.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
