The aim of this study is to realize an analysis of cryptocurrencies in Albania. Cryptocurrencies have experienced tremendous changes in the last years, and have often been the subject of debates. Albania is one of the countries in which seems really difficult to have the opportunity of using cryptocurrencies as a payment tool, or as an investment alternative. Throughout this investigation, we will treat some of the main difficulties and challenges of the cryptocurrency market in Albania. As the study reveals, it seems that it has not been easy for Albanian investors to use cryptocurrency as an investment alternative, or use cryptocurrency as a payment tool. Anyway, what we can emphasize is the fact that we can see some positive steps in this direction. Even though it seems a slow process, the removal of some legal restrictions related to cryptocurrencies reflects the “break” of the “walls” that were serving as a barrier for them in Albania. Only the future can show this, so the only thing that we can do is to wait for it
Abstract The European sovereign debt crisis and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic have revealed the European Economic and Monetary Union’s fragility, which essentially emanates from the inherent tension between a single monetary policy and decentralized fiscal policies. To cushion economic and financial shocks and sever the sovereign-bank doom loop, different proposals to create a common public debt security have been put forward, although none of them has so far seen the light of day. Building on pertinent economic and finance scholarship, this article reviews four promising safe asset proposals from a legal perspective: Sovereign bond-backed securities (SBBS), E-bonds, Purple bonds, and Coronabonds. Rather than focusing on their feasibility under EU law or national constitutional law, this article compares the proposals from an investor perspective against the backdrop of the following formal and functional legal characteristics that render assets ‘safe’: governing law, dispute settlement forum, investor protection, and investor representation in sovereign debt restructurings. Against this backdrop, targeted recommendations on critical design elements of safe assets, with the aim of reconciling the economic policy objectives with the pertinent legal constraints, are advanced.
Abstract A recent wave of scholarship attests that the liberal world order is under threat. Although there is disagreement about the underlying reasons for this diagnosis, there are few attempts to further our understanding of how the liberal order can be reinvigorated. This paper probes the potential of blockchain technology to promote international cooperation. Blockchain technology is a data structure that enables global governance stakeholders to establish decentralized governance systems which provide high-powered incentives for enhanced cooperation. By outlining the contours of a blockchain-based global governance system for climate policy, the paper illustrates that blockchain technology holds theoretical promise to foster cooperation in three ways: leveraging new sources of information through blockchain-based prediction markets; allaying coordinating problems through reducing the cost of transactions for side payments; and allowing states and other global governance actors to make more credible commitments given guaranteed execution of blockchain-enabled smart contracts. By empowering local knowledge holders and non-state actors that traditionally lacked the means to coordinate efforts to influence global politics, blockchain technology also promises to advance an international order based on liberal values. In actuality, however, emerging blockchain-based global governance systems will fall short of the libertarian ideal of ‘fully-automated liberalism’ as their design and operation will remain under the shadow of power.
Previous studies demonstrate the existence of recurrent arbitrage opportunities in the cryptocurrency market and describe strategies that can be used to profit from them. There is, however, limited research describing the practical aspects and challenges of adopting such strategies. This paper covers the design, implementation, and evaluation of the high-frequency intramarket arbitrage strategy on the leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance. It also describes the notion of arbitrage, cryptocurrency market, and the approaches to implementing the automated trading system. Methods for assets selection, arbitrage detection algorithms, optimization, and real-time testing are discussed. The research findings confirm the existence of the expected market inefficiencies leading to the arbitrage opportunities and the profitability of the implemented system under certain trading conditions.
Central banks are flocking to government-backed cryptocurrency, taking full advantage of the media attention brought to Bitcoin and other digital currency. However, while government-backed cryptocurrency avoids some pitfalls presented by private cryptocurrencies, other problems are less easily sidestepped. And government-backed cryptocurrencies, if widely adopted, could present issues to the stability of the international monetary system. These problems must be addressed, and not only as they arise. Unfortunately, national and international governments have shown no real ability to deal with troubles arising from private cryptocurrency. The government-backing of such digital currency changes the calculus, permitting a new entity to deal with these problems. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the best organization to deal with the issues. This Note submits that the IMF should act quickly to take pre-emptive measures and develop a system of best practices for dealing with government-backed cryptocurrency in pursuance of ensuring a stable international monetary system.
The article is aimed at defining the process of settlements in cryptocurrencies between enterprises and its accounting display. During the research, it was found that all participants using cryptocurrencies distribute risks among themselves. Due to the non-recognition of the cryptocurrency as payment means, the NBU as a regulator has fully abnegated its powers as to this issue. The strengths and weaknesses of the use of digital assets are considered and listed; the main risks are characterized. It is proposed to use a synthetic account of the second order of 128 «Digital Assets» for account of any crypto assets, in the context of which it is possible to open analytical accounts appropriate for account of specific cryptocurrencies. For example, one may use of 128.1 to account the cryptocurrency bitcoin cache; 128.2 – to account the bitcoin cryptocurrency; 128.3 – to account the ether cryptocurrency etc. In addition, to account for cryptocurrencies stored on crypto-wallets, such as Coinomi, it is proposed to use a synthetic account of the second order of 336 «Digital wallet». The reflection in the accounts of payments with cryptocurrency for goods is considered. It is determined that modern «accounting science» allows identifying and making certain corrections to the existing account plan for the accounting display of certain objects, such as digital money, cryptocurrencies. Therefore, the information function of accountance allows to conduct a continuous, uninterrupted and inter-relational reflection of economic activity. The results of the research show that it is not necessary to neglect such a digital asset as cryptocurrency. It can be stored on digital wallets and used as payment means on the Internet for the proposed goods, works or services.
This Article IV Consultation highlights that Malta has been one of the fastest growing countries in the European Union after the crisis, because of a rapid structural rebalancing towards export-oriented services—mainly remote gaming and tourism. The authorities are now exploring new development areas around the blockchain technology. As per the authorities, domestic demand would continue to be the main driver of growth, and persistent labor market tightness might eventually put some pressure on wages and prices. They consider global protectionism as a key external risk and emphasized ongoing actions to address domestic risks related to money laundering. The report also shows that Malta’s new development areas related to the distributed ledger technology present both opportunities and risks. The IMF team stresses that policies should focus on enhancing the economy’s resilience, ensuring financial stability and integrity and making growth more inclusive. It is important to promote strong and inclusive growth by encouraging further labor market participation of women and elderly workers.
Decentralized finance has evolved as a major contender for traditional banking systems over the last few years. Evolution in blockchain and cryptography technologies are the driving forces for decentralized finance’s growth. The emergence of Bitcoin in the finance system was a major driving force toward the tremendous growth of decentralized finance. However, with various platforms merging every day, the decentralized finance sector is still in its early, unorganized stages. The current decentralized finance market is chaotic. With a new “coin” being introduced almost every month, standardization is highly lacking in the system. DeFi already has several different applications available. For instance, one can purchase stable coins, or assets pegged to a national currency, on decentralized exchanges, move the assets to a lending platform that is also decentralized to earn interest, and then add the interest-earning instruments to a decentralized liquidity pool or an on-chain investment fund. DeFi enterprises frequently aim at decentralized decision-making, or governance, in everything from the user fees to the products they provide. A decentralized program may be started by one person or a small number of individuals, but as the project gathers traction, its leaders frequently try to step down and cede control to the user base. A decentralized autonomous organization that has its rules and regulations written into computer code and that may issue governance tokens, which allow its holders a voice in decisions rather than allowing the decision-making to a centralized government authority as in case of traditional finance, could represent this transition. While on one side, world governments are still trying to grasp and regulate the sector, on the other side, the technology’s reach has been very limited. Undoubtedly, the emergence of blockchain-based decentralized finance is massively influencing our current finance technology industry. In this chapter, we discuss the current growth in the FinTech industry and the blockchain-based decentralized finance sector. Furthermore, we discuss how decentralized finance can be used in the current FinTech industry.
This chapter discusses public sector growth to illuminate the puzzle in political economy regarding effective government constraints and to provide an analysis of the institutional structures that can "tame Leviathan." It argues that altering the institutional structures to be more polycentric would contain important self-generating mechanisms to tame Leviathan. A polycentric organization of government describes a system with many centers of decision-making units that are formally independent of each other and it involves multiple, overlapping systems of autonomous governments. An important feature of what makes an institutional structure "more" or "less" polycentric is the degree of autonomy of the states, localities, or subunits in the society. The features of a polycentric institution complemented by the decentralization of money would move us closer to the reality of a constrained government. Borrowing money and inflating are the remaining choices, and this is what politicians tend to do.
This work conceptualizes a process for cryptocurrency to diversify traditional methods of higher education funding in the United States. Higher education funding has seemingly reached an impasse, and opinions remain divided over both which societal parties should bear the educational costs for the vast majority of Americans and how to remedy the student debt crisis. Cryptocurrency funding augments traditional revenue streams, and shifts the discussion of education costs from expenses to a more robust conversation about innovative avenues to wealth generation as a potential solution to fund the mission of American higher education. Historically, higher education has been rooted in scarcity frameworks and a type of zero-sum proposition for funding allocation, and this conceptual paper acknowledges the the central concerns of higher education funding and explores these arguments as legacy discourses rooted in career preparation, accessibility and affordability, and arguments about the need for a broad-based education versus more technical skills training. Further, an alternative model to current higher education funding models is presented to embrace technological, disruptive wealth generation based on cryptocurrency to deploy this asset class to serve education needs by funding research, students, and the academy through an illustrated conceptual framework for funding. implementation.
Much American electoral and policy debate now centers on how best to reignite the nation’s economic dynamism and rebuild its competitive strength. Any such undertaking presents an extraordinary challenge, demanding a correspondingly extraordinary institutional response. This Article proposes precisely such a response. It designs and advocates a new public instrumentality--a National Investment Authority (“NIA”)--charged with the critical task of devising and implementing a comprehensive long-term development strategy for the United States.Patterned in part after the New Deal-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation, in part after modern sovereign wealth funds, and in part after private equity and venture capital firms, the NIA is an inherently hybrid, public-private entity that combines the unique strengths of public instrumentalities--their vast scale, lengthy investment horizons, and explicit backing by the public’s full faith and credit--with the micro-informational advantages of private market actors. By creatively adapting familiar tools of financial and legal engineering, the NIA overcomes obstacles that ordinarily impede or discourage private investment in critically necessary and even transformative public infrastructure goods. By channeling presently speculative private capital back into the real economy, moreover, the NIA plays an important role in enhancing the resilience and stability of the U.S. and global financial systems.The Article makes original contributions not only to contemporary policy debates over how to revive America’s productive prowess and bring its financial system back into the service of the real economy, but also to current theoretical understandings of “public goods,” “market failures,” and how to provide or address them. It offers an account of what it calls “collective goods”--a broader category than orthodox public goods--as solutions to collective action problems that pervade decentralized markets, hence as goods that can be supplied only through exercises of collective agency. Our NIA proposal operationalizes this theoretical insight by elaborating a specific institutional form that such collective agency can take.
Hawk and Huser, who started the legal debate on EU competition law relating to minority shareholdings, compared the evolving legal situation in the 1990s to shifting sands. More than two decades after their demand for a clearer approach, the situation has not substantially changed. The legal framework emerging from the recent Commission White Paper, entitled ‘Towards a More Effective Merger Control’, looks to be struggling in the midst of two kinds of shifting sands, that is, on the one hand, those pertaining to the uncertainty of current EU competition law on this matter and, on the other hand, those represented by evolving European corporate law and practice, among which are the increasing introduction of stronger minority shareholder rights, the diffusion of new forms of equity ownership, for instance the so-called morphable ownership, and the emergence of hybrid finance, especially in the banking sector. Such uncertainties at the corporate law level may suggest the opportunity to improve the proposed reform framework, redesigning thresholds, including the assessment of the anticompetitive effects of debt and hybrid financial instruments and eventually the decentralization of part or all of the application of the new rules at a national level.
The Asian and especially the global crisis of 2008 have catalyzed decentralization of the developing world’s financial governance architecture. I understand this state of affairs via the concept of “productive incoherence” which is apparent in a denser, multilayered development financial architecture that is emerging as a consequence of heterogeneous practical adjustments to changing circumstances rather than as the embodiment of a coherent doctrine. Drawing on Albert Hirschman, I argue that the absence of an encompassing theoretical blueprint for a new economic system—i.e. a new “ism” to replace neoliberalism—is in fact a vitally important virtue. If we cannot live without a new “ism,” I propose “Hirschmanian Possibilism” as a new doctrine—one that rejects an overarching theoretical framework from which to deduce the singly appropriate institutional structure of the economy. Hirschmanian Possibilism asserts instead the value of productive incoherence as a framework for pursuing democratic, ethically viable development institutions.
Defines ownership arrangement as the way the state organizes itself to exercise its ownership rights over state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and focuses on how to create effective ownership arrangements by improving traditional ownership arrangements; by creating advisory or coordinating bodies to facilitate the state’s ownership role; by centralizing the state’s ownership functions; and by ensuring the effectiveness of ownership arrangements. While countries vary substantially, ownership models fall broadly into four categories: (1) The decentralized model, where ownership responsibilities are dispersed among different line ministries; (2) The dual model, a variation of the decentralized model, where in addition to line ministries a second ministry, such as the ministry of finance, may also have certain responsibilities; (3) The advisory model, where ownership remains dispersed but an advisory or coordinating body is created to advise ministries on ownership matters; and (4) The centralized model, where ownership responsibilities are centralized in an entity or entities that may be independent or may fall within government.
This chapter identifies recent trends and explores the effects of global financial crisis on subnational finance. Sub-national finances have also been adversely affected by the global financial crisis, though in varying ways in different countries. Most of the policy responses to the crisis have been from the central governments in several forms. Transfers to sub-national governments have been biased in favour of earmarked transfers to sub-serve national goals, having regard to absorptive capacity. Drawing from the experience of sub-national finance, in the context of the global crisis, it is possible to identify some emerging issues such as possibility of further decentralization in governments in the post-crisis years; scope for increase in the space for fiscal management in sub-national levels; and possibility of building buffers against shocks at sub-national levels.
Housing finance is both the servant and the master of the housing process. The finance available fits into the general policy framework in that it enables the construction of housing within the wider supply context current at the time. It also drives the process: reductions in finance affect the scale of supply and allocation among groups supplying and demanding housing. In times when centralized control is politically dominant, finance is likely to be directed at governments and their agencies. Decentralization directs finance to smaller units, concentrating more on local authorities than on central governments. In times when nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are trusted above governments, shelter finance will be channelled through them. The same occurs when citizen groups gain power and respect.
The financial situation in China before Westernization Movement and the financial situation in Japan before Meiji Reform were similar and confronted financial crisis.Because of political and economic difference before the reform of the two countries,and because of the difference in reform guiding ideas and leading capacity of the two countries,Westernization Movement of the Qing Dynasty did not conduct political system reform,its financial system was still the management style under feudal system,the Qing Dynasty only decentralized its financial right,which finally did not bring about financial situation change but intensified financial crisis,however,Meiji Reform of Japanese Government is overall,conducted relatively thorough political system reform,reformed salary system to reduce financial expenditure,reformed land tax to increase financial revenue,supported civil capital to exploit new tax sources and finally solved financial crisis to have set up new financial system conducive to capitalist production mode development.
With decentralization and urbanization, the debts of state and local governments and of quasi-public agencies have grown in importance. Rapid urbanization in developing countries requires large-scale infrastructure financing to help absorb influxes of rural populations. Borrowing enables state and local governments to capture the benefits of major capital investments immediately and to finance infrastructure more equitably across multiple generations of service users. \n \nWith debt comes the risk of insolvency. Subnational debt crises have reoccurred in both developed and developing countries. Restructuring debt and ensuring its sustainability confront moral hazard and fiscal incentives in a multilevel government system; individual subnational governments might free-ride common resources, and public officials at all levels might shift the cost of excessive borrowing to future generations. \n \nThis book brings together the reform experiences of emerging economies and developed countries. Written by leading practitioners and experts in public finance in the context of multilevel government systems, the book examines the interaction of markets, regulators, subnational borrowers, creditors, national governments, taxpayers, ex-ante rules, and ex-post insolvency systems in the quest for subnational fiscal discipline. \n \nSuch a quest is intertwined with a country’s historical, political, and economic context. The formal legal framework interacts with political reality to influence the dynamics of and incentives for reform. Often, the resolution of a subnational debt crisis unfolds in the context of macroeconomic stabilization and structural reforms. \n \nThe book includes reforms that have not been covered by previous literature, such as those of China, Colombia, France, Hungary, Mexico, and South Africa. The book also presents a comprehensive review of how the United States developed its debt market for state and local local governments through a series of reforms that are path \ndependent, including the reforms and lessons learned following state defaults in the \n1840s and the debates that shaped the enactment of Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy \nCode in 1937. Looking forward, pressures on subnational finance are likely to continue—from the fragility of global recovery, the potentially higher cost of capital, refinancing risks, \nand sovereign risks. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to know the \nchallenges and reform options in debt restructuring, insolvency frameworks, and \npublic debt market development.