Optimal central banking policies: Envisioning the post-digital yuan economy with loan prime rate-setting

We develop a DSGE model with cash deposits and digital currencies to study the economic stability of two potential central banking policies in China, a Loan Prime Rate (LPR) policy function and central bank digital currency (CBDC) implementation. We Bayesian-estimate both a benchmark model and a “Post-CBDC world”. In the post-CBDC world, although the introduction of CBDC appears to deepen the procyclicality of macroeconomic variables to real shocks, a potential LPR-setting policy appears to have some degree of policy complementarity with CBDC to mitigate this. We also uncover an optimal policy combination of the LPR rule and Taylor-style CBDC rule.