Money Demand and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), in the Republic of South Africa

We have examined empirically two important economic relationships, the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and the money demand relationship, among the consumer prices, money, output, interest rates, and the nominal rand/dollar exchange rate of the Republic of South Africa (RSA) for the sample period from 1993 second quarter to 2003 second quarter within the frameworks of co-integration and Error Correction Model (ECM). It is established that the strong version of the PPP including the proportionality and the symmetry hypothesis, is supported. The changes in the rand/dollar exchange rates are influenced by the long term trends in the consumer prices of the RSA and the USA. There also exists a well defined money demand function for this period. The broad money demand is influenced by the consumer prices, the GDP and the interest rates. The short-term interest rates are found to be the own rate of return for broad money and the long-term bond yield is the opportunity cost of holding money. The monetary policy works through the short term interest rates.