Chair Powell Chats CBDCs at Cato

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell joined us last week for the 40th Annual Monetary Conference. Adding to Cato’s long tradition of welcoming speakers from all sides of the policy debates, Powell now joins the ranks of Monetary Conference alumni such as Ron Paul, Alan Greenspan, Anna Schwartz, Ben Bernanke, John Taylor, and countless others. The hour‐​long conversation covered unemployment, the dual mandate, nominal gross domestic product (NGDP) targeting, cryptocurrencies, and even Milton Friedman’s famous quote that “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” However, I’d like to take a moment here to highlight Powell’s remarks on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).