Spring Semester 2025-2026

CANCELLED

Title: "Private Money and Public Debt. U.S. Stablecoins and the Global Safe Asset Channel" 
(with Daniele Siena)

Speaker: Dr. Massimo Ferrari Minesso, European Central Bank

Host:  Assistant Professor Ioannis Kospentaris, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business

Room:  76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36

Abstract: This paper studies the international macro-financial implications o f U .S. dollar-backed payment stablecoins. These digital assets create a new global safe asset channel that links private money creation and global payment needs directly to U.S. public debt. By reshaping the demand for safe assets and the geography of dollar intermediation, stablecoins transform the dynamics of global financial markets, generating new trade-offs, also for the U .S.: while stablecoins increase the global footprint o f t he U .S. dollar and lower the level of U.S. risk-free yields, there are also costs for the issuing country. Stablecoins dampen the domestic real effects of U.S. monetary policy and increase U.S. and foreign exposure to cross-country shocks. These effects are limited a t l ow adoption levels but rise non-linearly with stablecoin capitalization.

Attachments:  PDF of Relevant Paper

Title: "Capital Taxation in Life-Cycle Economies: Production Efficiency, Risk, and Bubbles"

Speaker: Associate Professor Nikolaos Kokonas, University of Bath

Host:  Assistant Professor Ioannis Kospentaris, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business

Room:  76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36

Abstract: This paper studies optimal capital income taxation in an overlapping-generations economy with elastic labor supply, uninsurable idiosyncratic income risk, and government debt. We show that, contrary to standard results in the OLG literature, production efficiency generically holds when the government can issue debt and levy age-independent taxes on labor and capital income. A Robust Pareto Improvement argument `a la Aguiar et al. (2024) identifies the minimum set of fiscal instruments and the nature of shocks consistent with production efficiency. Analytical tax formulas decompose the optimal capital tax into two channels: a life-cycle channel, arising from endogenous, age-varying labor supply; and an insurance channel, stemming from market incompleteness. We identify conditions under which the insurance channel calls for capital income subsidies, whereas endogenous age variation in labor supply justifies a positive capital income tax when age-dependent taxation is unavailable. Finally, we establish an allocation equivalence between the baseline economy with debt and an alternative bubble economy, provided that bubble returns are taxed by the government. When bubble returns cannot be taxed, then the optimal capital income tax in the bubble economy is zero, even with life-cycle behaviour, age-independent taxes, and incomplete markets.

Title: "ΤΒΑ"

Speaker: Associate Professor Petros G. Sekeris, TBS Education (Toulouse)

Host:  Assistant Professor Efthymios Athanasiou, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business

Room:  76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36

Title: "TBA"

Speaker: Professor Constantatos Christos, University of Macedonia

Host:  Assistant Professor Efthymios Athanasiou, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business

Room:  76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36