This project implements an interest-free pilot within a cooperative payment network in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. The network and the credit use a local currency with behavioral nudges: a time-counter and a solidarity fee. These catalyze circular development and can collect funds to cover credit risks. This decouples prosperity from resource consumption, enhancing resilience against financial crises. Goal: Using lessons learnt from this experiment to develop a reproducible framework of local circular money with interest-free credit for global scaling, also offering microfinance institutions (MFIs) a growth-independent financial system that amplifies their activities’ impact.
Economic transition: the costs and benefits of (in)action
What does an economy look like that focuses not on GDP growth, but on well-being, ecology and justice?
What is needed to achieve this sustainable economy and how is our current economic system holding back these changes?
We are exploring these questions from a practical perspective as part of the program: ‘Economic transition: the costs and benefits of (in)action’. Together with partners from academia, the professional sector, government and social movements, we are working to shape this transition, set it in motion and anchor it. In doing so, we actively apply knowledge in practice to bring about a transformation of our current economic system.