M-RCBG Senior Fellow-Led Study Group: Jean-Pierre Landau
The Digitalization of Money
September 16, 4:00 – 5:30, M-RCBG Conference Room, B-503
The Libra project, launched by Facebook, followed two years of intense debate on the merits of crypto currencies. They are part of a broader movement of digitalization of our economies and money systems. Digitalisation has fundamentally changed the nature of social, economic, and informational interconnectedness, and it is now revolutionising money and payment. We can now hold money on our mobile phones and transfer wealth across peer-to-peer networks to counterparties anywhere in the world. As a result of these developments, the barriers defining traditional currency areas may break down, and both domestic and international monetary systems will be reshaped.
Jean-Pierre Landau is an Associate Professor of Economics at SciencesPo - Paris and a former senior official at the French Treasury and Central Bank. He has served as Deputy Governor of the Banque de France, Executive Director for France at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (Washington, DC), and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (London). He was also Undersecretary at the Minister of Finance in Paris. In his different capacities, he was a member of the Board of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, a G7 and G20 Deputy, and a member of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and its Steering Committee. He was Visiting Professor at John Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and Lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School (Princeton University). He co-authored "The Euro and the Battle of Ideas" with Markus Brunnermeier and Harold James, published at Princeton University Press in 2016. His main fields of interest include money and international economics, areas where he has direct and extensive experience. As a Senior Fellow, he will be conducting research on "The future of money in a digital world". His faculty sponsor is Jeffrey Frankel, James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University's Kennedy School. Email: jean-pierre_landau@hks.harvard.edu