Raphael Auer currently is Principal Economist of the Innovation and Digital Economy unit at Bank for International Settlements, having previously spent three years in the Monetary Policy unit. Prior to that, he worked 10 years at Swiss National Bank – most recently as Deputy Head and Economic Advisor of the International Trade and Capital Flows unit; he also was an associated research professor at the Konjunkturforschungsstelle (KOF) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). During 2009-2010, he visited Princeton School of Public and International Affairs as Globalization and Governance Fellow and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as research fellow.
His current policy work focuses on issues related to cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and central bank digital currency (CBDC). On these topics, he contributes to BIS policy publications and management speeches, as well as to various international fora, including the Basel Committee, the Financial Stability Board, and the G20-CPMI Cross-Border Payments Taskforce.
He also works on the interaction of international trade and macroeconomics, examining in particular how exchange rates pass through into domestic inflation and how the global production network gives rise to globally synchronized inflation dynamics.
He has published various research papers in the field of international economics, monetary policy, and digital currencies (see papers and publications). He is associate editor of the Review of International Economics, president of the Central Bank Research Association, is a research fellow at CEPR and CESifo, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT.