This paper investigates how the introduction of an unremunerated central bank digital currency (CBDC) would affect the Korean economy. I adopt the quantitative framework of Hemingway (2024), a New Monetarist cash-credit model in which monetary frictio...
This paper investigates how the introduction of an unremunerated central bank digital currency (CBDC) would affect the Korean economy. I adopt the quantitative framework of Hemingway (2024), a New Monetarist cash-credit model in which monetary frictions play a central role, and calibrate it to annual Korean data from 2015 to 2023. The results show that the introduction of CBDC generates a positive welfare effect for Korea. However, this gain has diminished in recent years as private-sector digital payments have become increasingly widespread. Even so, CBDC is expected to yield a modest welfare improvement by providing an additional outside option; although it would be used sparingly, its mere availability relaxes payment frictions and delivers a small but positive welfare gain.