Consumer Attitudes Towards a Central Bank Digital Currency

Abstract

We field a series of experiments in a population-representative survey of European consumers to examine their attitudes towards the possible introduction of a digital euro. First, we show that a short video explaining the key features of the digital euro is effective in changing consumers’ beliefs about such a new form of payment and increases the likelihood of adoption by 12pp relative to a control group that is not shown the video. Second, we find that on aggregate consumers would allocate a relatively small fraction from a positive wealth shock to digital euros and their allocation to other liquid assets would be little affected. Third, holding limits in the range of €1,000 to €10,000 have insignificant differential effects on the composition of liquid asset holdings. We also show that a non-trivial fraction of consumers report that they will not adopt the digital euro due to strong preferences for existing forms of payment.

Keywords: Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), consumer expectations survey, household expectations, household finance, money, payments, Randomized Control Trial (RCT)

JEL Classification: E41, E58, D12, D14, G51