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The world is becoming increasingly addicted to doing business in cyberspace, across the Internet and World Wide Web. As electronic commerce (e-commerce) expands, it seems only a matter of time before various innovative forms of money, based on digital data and issued by private market actors, begin to substitute in one way or another for state-sanctioned banknotes and checking accounts as customary means of payment. The era of electronic money will soon be upon us.

虽然难以具体预测，电子货币的影响肯定是多方面的，深远的。在本文中，我关注一个关键维度：电子货币的国家货币管理的潜在影响。目前的问题是货币政策作为宏观调控的工具的有效性。电子货币的出现将意味着央行维持物价稳定和促进增长的能力？

Though difficult to predict in detail, the effects of electronic money are sure to be both manifold and profound. In this article I focus on one critical dimension: the potential impact of electronic money on national monetary management. At issue is the effectiveness of monetary policy as an instrument of macroeconomic control. What will the advent of electronic money mean for the capacity of central banks to sustain price stability and promote growth?
Remarkably, this momentous question has until recently received relatively little attention in the formal literature, (2) though casual commentary abounds. Preliminary positions were staked out early. At one pole we find Stephen Kobrin (1997), a professor of international management, who sees a new day dawning in the governance of money. As he puts it: "Private e-currencies will make it difficult for central bankers to control - or even measure or define - monetary aggregates.... At the extreme... currencies issued by central banks may no longer matter" (Kobrin 1997: 71). More recently, Kobrin's view has received implicit endorsement in a noteworthy article by economist Benjamin Friedman, who argues that with the development of e-money, monetary policy is at risk of becoming little more than a device to signal the authorities' pReferences. The central bank, in Friedman's words, is becoming no more than "an army with only a signal corps" (Friedman 1999: 321). At the opposite pole we find political scientist Eric Helleiner (1998), who sees not a new day but a false dawn. Fears for the future of monetary policy may be overstated, he contends, if not totally misleading. To the contrary, "new forms of electronic money are unlikely to pose a significant threat to the power of the sovereign state" (Helleiner 1998: 399-400). Helleiner's view has been implicitly endorsed lately by several economists, including Charles Freedman (2000), Charles Goodhart (2000), and Michael Woodford (2000). (3) In Woodford's words, concerns "for the role of central banks are exaggerated.... Even such radical changes as might someday develop are unlikely to interfere with the conduct of monetary policy" (Woodford 2000: 6).
These alternative perspectives could not be more divergent. Who is right? The aim of the following discussion (4) is to move beyond preliminary prognostications to attempt a more systematic exploration of electronic money's prospective challenge to the traditional authority of central banks. The main goal of monetary policy is to keep the level of aggregate expenditure