Central Bank Communication and CBDC Implementation

The paper studies a talk-action gap. CBDC has become a regular topic in central-bank speeches, but many jurisdictions remain at research or exploration stages. The question is whether stronger public commitment in speeches tells us that implementation is coming, or whether it mostly reflects participation in a global policy debate.

The evidence suggests that public commitment is useful for understanding agenda-setting, but weak for predicting advancement beyond research once previous CBDC stage and common time shocks are controlled. Legal-regulatory language, open-economy vulnerability, and institutional risk tolerance are more informative about progression.

The broader point is institutional. Public deliberation is relatively low-cost: it signals awareness, keeps options open, and responds to peer pressure. Moving beyond research is costly because it exposes central banks to legal authority questions, financial stability concerns, and political risks.

Public commitment captures whether CBDC is on the policy agenda, but adds little stable information about advancement beyond research once prior stage is controlled.

Research question

Does central-bank communication about CBDC predict implementation, or does it mainly capture low-cost agenda participation?

Why it matters

CBDC debate is global, but implementation depends on legal authority, financial openness, and institutional risk. The paper helps separate rhetorical convergence from actual policy progression.

Data and method

Data

The paper uses a country-year panel built from 15,906 scored central-bank speeches from 122 jurisdictions between 2015 and 2025, drawn from a broader corpus of 37,814 speeches from 134 jurisdictions. It links speech measures to retail CBDC stages and country-level institutional variables.

Method

Speech excerpts are scored for CBDC commitment, technology salience, and constraint dimensions under a structured rubric. The empirical design relates those measures to CBDC stage progression with dynamic controls, common time shocks, and institutional covariates.

Findings

1. Commitment tracks talk

   Public commitment captures whether CBDC is on the policy agenda, but adds little stable information about advancement beyond research once prior stage is controlled.

2. Open capital accounts slow progression

   Capital account openness is negatively associated with movement beyond research, consistent with open-economy risk exposure.

3. Legal constraints are informative

   Legal-regulatory concern language is the most stable negative speech correlate of advancement.

4. Prediction gains are small

   Adding speech measures to strong baseline predictors only modestly changes predictive performance; intervals include zero.

The paper contributes a speech-based CBDC panel and shows that the correlates of public deliberation differ from the correlates of implementation. It links CBDC communication to institutional isomorphism and policy-practice decoupling.

Figures and tables

Scope and limits

The speech measures reveal how central banks frame CBDC, not private internal decisions. Legal-constraint language can be both a cause and a symptom of stalled progress, so it is best interpreted as a revealed feasibility marker.

How to cite

@article{kansoy2026cbdc,
  title   = {Central Bank Communication and CBDC Implementation},
  author  = {Fatih Kansoy},
  journal = {University of Oxford Department of Economics Discussion Papers},
  year    = {2026},
  url     = {https://fatih.ai/cbdc.pdf}
}

Selected references

1. BIS. 2025. Advancing retail CBDC work while preserving optionality.
2. Blinder, A. S., Ehrmann, M., de Haan, J., and Jansen, D.-J. 2024. Central bank communication with the general public.
3. Bossu, W., Itatani, M., Margulis, C., Rossi, A., Weenink, H., and Yoshinaga, A. 2020. Legal aspects of central bank digital currency.
4. Kosse, A. and Mattei, I. 2023. Making headway: Results of the 2022 BIS survey on central bank digital currencies.
5. Gurkaynak, R. S., Sack, B., and Swanson, E. 2005. Do actions speak louder than words?