europa. eu / press / key / date / 2021 / html / ecb. sp211008 ~ 3c37b106cf. en. html. https : / / www. fsb. org / work - of - the - fsb / financial - innovation - and - structural - change / crypto - assets - andglobal - stablecoins /. https : / / www. ecb. europa. eu / press / key / date / 2021 / html / ecb. sp211008 ~ 3c37b106cf. en. html. brunnermeier and landau, 2022. similarly, without the european central bank issuing digital money – that would provide a common unit of account and a convertibility anchor underpinning the various forms of private digital money – consumers could lose sight of a visible symbol linking money to the state. this could undermine trust in money and ultimately monetary sovereignty. moreover, it remains unclear to me why central banks, charged with fulfilling their mandates, should stand idly by in the face of digitalisation. the changes affecting money and payments are at the core of central banks ’ responsibilities. in today ’ s technological landscape, central banks cannot confine themselves to merely providing paper money. they have a responsibility to satisfy people ’ s needs, which increasingly favour digital payments over physical cash. issuing a digital euro as a form of digital cash would ensure that public money remains an option available to all, providing a convenient payment instrument with a pan - european reach. and it would provide an alternative payment network to those operated by the dominant card and online payment solution providers, making it easier and cheaper for supervised intermediaries to offer new, pan - european services. the benefits of a digital euro would be amplified in the context of the potential disruption caused by a handful of large technology companies seeking to dominate the payments market. it would play a key role in fostering competition, protecting privacy and enhancing stability. let me start with competition. a digital euro would be driven by public interest, promoting open standards to create a network that benefits everyone, rather than serving private interests by creating ‘ walled gardens ’. a digital euro would avoid the creation of closed loops, and instead offer all payment service providers ( psps ) an open platform for innovation, immediately scalable at european level. nowadays, the novel and advanced payment solutions available in many european countries encounter challenges in achieving a pan - european dimension, with direct

useful life for other equipment is about seven years. firms must invest in computers at a faster rate than that for other forms of capital just to maintain a given level of the capital stock. the rapid replacement of high - tech capital means that technological progress becomes " embodied " in the capital stock at a faster rate than is the case for longer - lived assets. the second feature of high - tech equipment that sets it apart from other classes of capital is the sensitivity of its demand to fluctuations in the cost of capital. economists have debated for decades about the magnitude of cost - of - capital effects on traditional capital goods. a past consensus was that there probably was a cost - of - capital effect but that it was small and very difficult to identify empirically. a somewhat different conclusion has arisen lately when the same basic models of investment are applied to spending on computers alone. the latest research shows that computers are quite sensitive to movements in the cost of capital, and as a result of the 20 percent per annum decline in relative computer prices, the cost of this type of capital fell rapidly in the past decade. this combination of a high price elasticity and a rapidly declining price led to the boom in high - tech investment. a third characteristic of high - tech investment is the magnitude of " external " or " spillover " effects that it generates. high - tech equipment generates benefits not only to the owner of the machine but to other agents in the economy as well. i am thinking in particular about so - called network effects - - that is, linking computers together makes possible larger productivity gains than do computers operated as stand - alone units. although difficult to measure, such network effects certainly have stimulated the demand for high - tech equipment and have helped to speed up the dispersion of new technologies. supporting structural changes the technological changes inspired by investments in computers have enhanced the ability of businesses to reduce their operating expenses. in many industries, investments in information technologies have helped firms to cut back on the volume of inventories that they hold as a precaution against glitches in their supply chain or as a hedge against unexpected increases in aggregate demand. product development costs have probably also been reduced through the use of better computer hardware and software, and new communications technologies have increased the speed with which firms can share information - - both internally and with their customers and suppliers. this is the intersection of macroeconomics and management. many business observers now believe that these newer technologies are not only reducing the cost of transforming inputs