Burkhard Balz: Digital currencies, global currencies Keynote speech by Mr Burkhard Balz, Member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank, at the China Europe Finance Summit - A Hybrid Conference on Sino-European Capital Markets, virtual event, 20 October 2020.
Recent economic developments The U.S. economy has contracted sharply since last autumn, with real gross domestic product (GDP) having dropped at an annual rate of more than 6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year. Among the enormous costs of the downturn is the loss of some 5 million payroll jobs over the past 15 months.