Yes, Banknotes Are A Central Bank Liability — Brian Romanchuk

David Bholat recently wrote “How to Modernise Central Bank Balance Sheets: No Notes.” It is partly in response to this article. The idea is that banknotes (“dollar bills”/”pound notes” etc. issued by the government should not be classified as a liability, rather as some form of capital or possibly taken off the balance sheet. I have run into variants of this idea in the past (the stronger version being that all forms of the monetary base are not liabilities), and the root idea is that “monetary issue is good for the economy, so how can it be a liability?” Such a redefinition or removal of banknotes is either misleading or wrong.

Bond Economics

Yes, Banknotes Are A Central Bank Liability

Brian Romanchuk