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Hi @bb- can you please help me understand?

The official answer states:
E. In countries where CBDC pilots have been launched, many citizens have opted to use them for payments but continue to hold their savings in private banks.

""The argument hinges on people shifting deposits away from private banks to CBDCs." - Option E's pilot evidence is about ordinary usage behavior, not about the crisis-specific mechanism the argument is relying on.

The reason I rejected E was because of this chain:
Proponents argue that since CBDCs offer a risk-free place to hold funds directly with the government, individuals will shift deposits away from commercial banks, lowering the risk of bank runs during economic crises.

Which narrows the reasoning down to :
CBDCs provide a risk-free government place to hold funds -> people will shift deposits away from commercial banks -> that reduces the risk of bank runs in crises -> therefore, financial stability improves.

So E does not directly show that people would fail to shift deposits in the crisis scenario.
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Hi PaleWall let me try to help

The conclusion is widespread adoption of CBDCs would enhance overall financial stability. Why? because it offers risk free option to hold funds- so people will shift to CBDC from commercial banks doing so will lower the risk of banks during economic crisis. These are all being stated as future possibility.

The question asks to weaken the reasoning... and the author is assuming that citizens will shift their money to CBDC. So to weaken it, we have to find the option that tells us the assumption will not hold, or there is some flaw in CBDC because of which citizens will not change their preference even though the positives have been stated in the premise.

Option E presents the assumption in a negated term by taking the evidence of places where these CBDC pilots have been launched and citizens' behavior did not change; they kept their savings in banks, so the risk on banks is not lowered, which kind of creates doubt on the conclusion for the country in discussion.

Hope this helps
PaleWall
Hi @bb- can you please help me understand?

The official answer states:
E. In countries where CBDC pilots have been launched, many citizens have opted to use them for payments but continue to hold their savings in private banks.

""The argument hinges on people shifting deposits away from private banks to CBDCs." - Option E's pilot evidence is about ordinary usage behavior, not about the crisis-specific mechanism the argument is relying on.

The reason I rejected E was because of this chain:
Proponents argue that since CBDCs offer a risk-free place to hold funds directly with the government, individuals will shift deposits away from commercial banks, lowering the risk of bank runs during economic crises.

Which narrows the reasoning down to :
CBDCs provide a risk-free government place to hold funds -> people will shift deposits away from commercial banks -> that reduces the risk of bank runs in crises -> therefore, financial stability improves.

So E does not directly show that people would fail to shift deposits in the crisis scenario.
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Hi AbhishekP220108
Thank you very much for the explanation, but my issue with E is narrower.

The argument is based on a crisis.
CBDCs provide a risk-free place to hold funds, which is supposed to reduce bank-run risk during economic crises.

Option E describes pilot behavior, that people use CBDCs for payments while keeping savings in private banks.

This option does not clarify whether the pilot is occurring during an economic crisis, so we cannot assume that it reflects behavior in the crisis scenario or that the argument is relying on it, then reason based on analogy.

Furthermore, citizens shifting their money to CBDCs is not an assumption. The author’s reasoning is that simply because such an instrument is available during an economic crisis, it should reduce dependence on private banks and therefore strengthen the financial system. So even if citizens do not shift their funds, the mere existence of CBDCs would still strengthen the financial system. Which is why option E has no impact on the argument.

-- >
Deleting the words 'during economic crises' should resolve the issue, I think, or adding that the pilots were performed during an economic crisis in the option choice.
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Hi PaleWall yes you raised a valid point that option E doesnt talks about implementation during crisis but it is giving a information about CBDC in general where it has been implemented. Additionally the question is asking to find option which most undermines so even if the option is successful in creating doubt that is better than other mentioned one is our option choice. Sometimes the GMAC do present a question which is based on narrow gap and while evaluating the option choice we have to find which one is apt for that.

Hope that helps


PaleWall
Hi AbhishekP220108
Thank you very much for the explanation, but my issue with E is narrower.

The argument is based on a crisis.
CBDCs provide a risk-free place to hold funds, which is supposed to reduce bank-run risk during economic crises.

Option E describes pilot behavior, that people use CBDCs for payments while keeping savings in private banks.

This option does not clarify whether the pilot is occurring during an economic crisis, so we cannot assume that it reflects behavior in the crisis scenario or that the argument is relying on it, then reason based on analogy.

Furthermore, citizens shifting their money to CBDCs is not an assumption. The author’s reasoning is that simply because such an instrument is available during an economic crisis, it should reduce dependence on private banks and therefore strengthen the financial system. So even if citizens do not shift their funds, the mere existence of CBDCs would still strengthen the financial system. Which is why option E has no impact on the argument.

-- >
Deleting the words 'during economic crises' should resolve the issue, I think, or adding that the pilots were performed during an economic crisis in the option choice.
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I did not quite understand the solution. Main conclusion of the argument is that CBDCs are introduced to strengthen and stabilize the financial system, by reducing the dependence on Pvt Banks (who may run away in crisis).
Option C states that Central Banks (like RBI) may restrict CBDC account limits to avoid destabilizing Commercial Lending Banks.
I feel this option weakens the main conclusion of the argument most, as the very thing (widespread adoption of CBDCs) which was suppose to stabilize the economy could potentially destabilize it instead.
Option E on the other hand is just sharing the observations made in other economies where similar measures were taken. It does make it vulnerable, but it can be interpreted both ways. People did get an additional financial tool, which may have reduced their dependence on the private banks. To what extent, we don't know, so can't surely say that this weakens the argument.
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Typo: Option *B* not C
Vanya91
I did not quite understand the solution. Main conclusion of the argument is that CBDCs are introduced to strengthen and stabilize the financial system, by reducing the dependence on Pvt Banks (who may run away in crisis).
Option C states that Central Banks (like RBI) may restrict CBDC account limits to avoid destabilizing Commercial Lending Banks.
I feel this option weakens the main conclusion of the argument most, as the very thing (widespread adoption of CBDCs) which was suppose to stabilize the economy could potentially destabilize it instead.
Option E on the other hand is just sharing the observations made in other economies where similar measures were taken. It does make it vulnerable, but it can be interpreted both ways. People did get an additional financial tool, which may have reduced their dependence on the private banks. To what extent, we don't know, so can't surely say that this weakens the argument.
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Hi Vanya91 do give this reply a read and let me know if you have any further query

https://gmatclub.com/forum/v26-454675.h ... l#p3763425

https://gmatclub.com/forum/v26-454675.html#p3763850

Now coming to B Central banks may restrict CBDC account limits to avoid destabilizing commercial lending markets.- It talks about the limit imposed, well this do gives us a reason to doubt but there is a little of skepticism what if the restriction is enough to move the money for most of the citizens, because nothing has been stated how much movement of money is sufficient right? So in comparison to E this is weaker as weaken choice.

Vanya91
I did not quite understand the solution. Main conclusion of the argument is that CBDCs are introduced to strengthen and stabilize the financial system, by reducing the dependence on Pvt Banks (who may run away in crisis).
Option C states that Central Banks (like RBI) may restrict CBDC account limits to avoid destabilizing Commercial Lending Banks.
I feel this option weakens the main conclusion of the argument most, as the very thing (widespread adoption of CBDCs) which was suppose to stabilize the economy could potentially destabilize it instead.
Option E on the other hand is just sharing the observations made in other economies where similar measures were taken. It does make it vulnerable, but it can be interpreted both ways. People did get an additional financial tool, which may have reduced their dependence on the private banks. To what extent, we don't know, so can't surely say that this weakens the argument.
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