A plan to have Switzerland’s central bank issue 53 billion Swiss francs ($58 billion) in “helicopter money” has stalled.
The measure envisioned giving tax-free 7,500 francs to all citizens from SNB coffers but the initiative appears unlikely to get enough signatures to move it forward for a national vote.
With the end of April deadline looming, Swiss tabloid Blick reported that just about half of the required 100,000 signatures had been obtained.
It is very difficult to collect signatures during a pandemic, Luca Volar, a local politician in the canton of St. Gallen and one of the backers of the plan, told the newspaper. We would have hoped for a little more support from the population.
When the SNB and several of its colleagues across the world were dealing with low inflation in late 2020, the initiative was launched. The idea of allowing central banks to produce money out of thin air and distribute it directly to the people, nicknamed “helicopter money,” has gained traction in some quarters as a strategy to enhance the economy’s money supply.
The term was invented by Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman to explain the consequences of monetary expansion on inflation and the price of keeping money.
Traditionally, mainstream policymakers have been reluctant of applying it. Thomas Jordan, the president of the SNB, has already dismissed it.
