the Digital Economy in Age of Central Bank Currencies: Theory, Institutions and Policy

The Digital Economy in the Age of Central Bank Digital Currencies offers a rigorous and timely examination of how money, payments, and monetary authority are being reshaped by digitalization. Moving beyond technology-centric narratives, the book reframes the digital economy as a monetary and institutional system one in which platforms, data infrastructures, and private payment networks increasingly mediate economic life, challenging the traditional role of public money. Integrating monetary theory, institutional economics, payment economics, and political economy, the authors analyze central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as strategic institutional responses to the fragmentation and privatization of digital payments. The book explores how CBDCs interact with monetary policy transmission, financial stability, competition, data governance, and legal frameworks, emphasizing design choices and governance trade-offs rather than technological hype. With comparative global analysis and a distinctive regional focus on Uzbekistan and Central Asia, the volume provides rare insight into CBDC adoption in emerging and developing economies. Richly supported by analytical frameworks, figures, and policy roadmaps, it equips policymakers, central bankers, scholars, and graduate students with a coherent understanding of why the future of money will be shaped less by code than by institutions. At a moment when many jurisdictions are moving from experimentation to implementation, this book serves as an essential guide to designing digital public money that is credible, inclusive, and institutionally sound.