Economic policy uncertainty and demand for money in Australia

The demand for money has received a great deal of attention in the empirical literature. This literature, however, has emphasized factors such as interest rate, income, inflation rate and exchange rate as the primary determinants of money demand. Although an emerging strand of literature examines uncertainty as a potential determinant of money demand, findings have been mixed. Using a news-based Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) index and Australian quarterly data from 1998 to 2017, we study the impact of policy uncertainty on demand for money. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) results show that the economic policy uncertainty measure has a negative short-run effect on the demand for money, suggesting the wider public hedge against future expected inflation, and positive long-run effect, whereby the broader public hold more cash to stay liquid during times of economic uncertainty. Also, introducing nonlinearity into the money demand equation, we find an asymmetric effect, more in favour of currency appreciations, supporting the expectations effect of further appreciations in exchange rate movements.     

An empirical note on bond-yield uncertainty and the demand for money

This paper empirically tests the effect of bond-yield uncertainty on the demand for money, as implied by the capital theory approach to the demand for money, suggested by Friedman and Tobin. It is expected that the demand for money is affected not only by the yield on bonds (which are a substitute asset), but it also in increasing function of their risk. The empirical tests, which employ two alternative measures of uncertainty (mean of squared deviations from the average, and the mean of squared deviation from a predictor obtained by exponential smoothing) seem to support the Friedman-Tobin hypothesis.     

Rational expectations and the demand for money: A nonparametric approach

This paper tests the U.S. demand for money for evidence of the effect of rational expectations of the income and interest rate variables that enter as arguments into that function. The data employed are simple-sum and Divisia aggregates, and the nonparametric tests are of the identification and information orthogonality of the various monetary measures. The Akaike Criterion is used to distinguish among the alternative specifications. While non-rationality is the typical result, Divisia aggregates appear to be more “rational” than simple sum. There is evidence of mean-reversion in interest rates as well.     

Revisiting the demand for money model: money and loans in selected manufacturing industries

Using a dynamic infinite horizon optimizing model, it is shown that the empirical demand for money equation employed by a generation of applied monetary researchers is a reduced form model of the dynamic Euler equations for real money balances. The Euler equations derived in this paper focus on the finance capital for the firm and consist of real money balances (M1) and real business loans (F1) for selected manufacturing industries. By employing explicit structural dynamic specification and sectoral disaggregation, the question of how firms close the gap between desired real money balances and actual real money balances is examined. Model consistent ‘desired’ levels of money balances and business loans are found to depend not only upon the usual transactions variable and interest rate but also upon relative prices and a technology index. Moreover, the speed in closing the gap between desired and actual money balances (loan balances) is estimated using annual two-digit Standard Industrial Code data for durable and non-durable industries. Non-durable industries tend to close the gap faster than durable industries by as much as 25% in a given year.     

A money demand system for German M3

A small macroeconomic model is constructed starting from a German money demand relation for M3 based on quarterly, seasonally unadjusted data for the period from 1976 to 1996. In contrast to previous studies we build a vector error correction model for M3, GNP, an inflation rate and an interest rate spread variable to represent opportunity costs of holding money. Furthermore, import price inflation is added as an exogenous variable. The model is used to analyze the relation between money growth and inflation by means of an impulse response analysis.We thank Gerd Hansen for soliciting two anonymous referee reports on an earlier version of this article and thereby helping in the editorial process for this volume. We are grateful to him, Timo Teräsvirta, Kirstin Hubrich and the two referees for comments that helped us to improve our paper. Financial support was provided by the DFG, Sonderforschungsbereich 373.     

A stable demand for money despite financial crisis: the case of Venezuela

The demand for broad money in Venezuela is investigated over a period of financial crisis and substantial exchange rate fluctuations. The analysis shows that there exist a long-run relationship between real money, real income, inflation, the exchange rate and an interest rate differential, that remains stable over major policy changes and large shocks. The long-run properties emphasize that both inflation and exchange rate depreciations have negative effects on real money demand, whereas a higher interest rate differential has positive effects. The long-run relationship is finally embedded in a dynamic equilibrium correction model with constant parameters. These results have implications for a policy-maker. In particular, they emphasize that with a high degree of currency substitution in Venezuela, monetary aggregates will be very sensitive to changes in the economic environment.     

A money demand system for euro area M3

In order to assess the importance of monetary and financial developments for key macroeconomic variables in the euro area a money demand system for M3 is estimated adopting a structural cointegrating VAR approach. While maintaining a good statistical representation of the data, long-run relationships are based on economic theory. By using generalized response profiles the dynamics of the money demand system is investigated without any further identifying assumptions. Error bounds of the profiles are derived using bootstrap simulations.     

The demand for money in Austria

In this paper, the demand for real money M1, M2, and M3 is estimated for Austria over the time period 1965–96. The modelling takes place within the framework of a small vector autoregression. To estimate the demand for money, two-equation error-correction models are constructed, which contain the short-run dynamics and the long-run economic equilibrium. It is found that a stable money demand exists for all monetary aggregates. The long-run equilibrium of M1, after accounting for a structural break in 1979, can be characterised as a classical type of money demand, with no interest rate effects and an elasticity of one for real GDP. In the case of M2 and M3, we find a unit coefficient on income and a significantly negative influence of a long-term interest rate. The statistical properties of the estimated short-run money demand equations – considering in-sample and out-of-sample tests – are generally very good. First version received: October 1996/Final version received: April 2000     

Specific complements and the demand for money in Australia

Clements and Nguyen, using Australian data, found that money, durables, and other consumption are specific complements. This letter applies a Nasse-type model to the same data and describes the associated preference independence transformation in order to interpret the results.     

Financial innovation and demand for money: some empirical evidence

Recent criticism of money growth targets has been based on the implications of spreading financial innovation, since the latter has been considered to undermine monetary policy effectiveness both by bringing about an increase in the interest elasticity of money demand and by producing instability of the money demand function. The empirical results presented in this paper – focusing on a single and specific case of financial innovation particularly suited to study the isssue at stake – falsify both hypotheses.     

A re-examination of the demand for money in small developing economies

This paper re-examines the money-demand function in three small open economies of Asia: Korea, Pakistan and Singapore. In addition to using the relatively new procedure of error-correction modelling, the roles of variables such as (a) the expected change in the exchange rate, (b) foregin interest rates, and (c) foreign exchange risks on money demand are examined. In testing the importance of these variables in the money-demand function, special attention is paid to testing the assumptions of the classical linear regression model. The sample period for each country spans from 1973:1 through 1990:1. The empirical results suggest that the error-correction specification performs very well. In addition to the traditional variables, the results suggest that at least some measure of foreign monetary developments appear to have some significant effect on money-demand behaviour in these small developing economies.     

Endogenous uncertainty and the non-neutrality of money

Summary. We study some implications of the Theory of Rational Beliefs to monetary policy. We show that monetary policy in a Rational Beliefs environment can have an important effect on the characteristics of economic fluctuations. In Rational Beliefs Equilibria money is generically non-neutral unlike Rational Expectations Equilibria in which money is neutral and monetary policy is ineffective. Under Rational Beliefs Equilibria nominal prices and real output change not only in response to changes in the exogenous growth rate of money but also in response to changes in the state of beliefs. In Rational Beliefs Equilibria monetary shocks have real effects even when they are observed but are not fully anticipated. Furthermore, the non-neutrality of money results in a short run Phillips curve. When money “flutters, real output sputters” [8]. We show that Endogenous Uncertainty and the distribution of market beliefs are the major explanatory variables of such fluctuations. Under Rational Expectations monetary policy is ineffective because agents neutralize it by predicting correctly the effect of the policy. Under Rational Beliefs it is shown instead that inflation and recessions can be substantially aggravated by the distribution of market beliefs. Received: January 14, 2002; revised version: April 5, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" I would like to thank Mordecai Kurz for his constant help and support. Most of the ideas developed hereby have been inspired by innumerable and fruitful discussions with him. I have also greatly benefited from helpful comments by Stanley Black, Luigi Campiglio, Carsten Nielsen and Ho-Mou Wu. I also received valuable remarks from participants at the V meeting of “The Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory” held in Ischia, Italy, on July 2-8, 2001, where an initial draft of the present work was presented.     

Wealth and the demand for money in the European Union

This study presents the results of an empirical analysis of the demand for money in the European Union as a whole over the period 1971–1995, with a particular focus on the impact of financial wealth. The empirical evidence shows a substantial impact of wealth on the demand for M2 and M3, whereas no influence of wealth on the demand for M1 is found. This finding may explain the remarkable increase of the broad monetary aggregates over the last decade or so. This means that taking into account the growth of wealth, the monetary expansion has been fairly modest. The evidence thus indicates that the strong increase of M2 and M3 should be attributed to portfolio investment considerations rather than to an expansionary monetary policy.Helpful comments by two anonymous referees, the participants in the Workshop on Money Demand at the Humboldt Universität and Hans Lunsing gratefully acknowledged.     

On the demand for money in the United States

One of the current issues in the literature on the demand for money is whether the adjustment of actual to desired money holdings is in real or nominal terms. This paper tests the real against the nominal adjustment hypothesis using United States data. Comparisons are made among simple sum and Divisia aggregates (of M1, M2, M3, and L) and with Spindt's monetary velocity (MQ) aggregate. The results strongly support the nominal adjustment hypothesis, but they do not reveal a single uniformly best monetary aggregate.     

Experimental approach to the determination of the demand for public goods: A comment

The paper argues that the Kurz experiments to elicit demand schedules for public goods will yield biased information if they are repeated. An alternative procedure is proposed.     

Stock prices and long-run demand for money: evidence from Malaysia

This paper investigates the money demand function for Malaysia in the 1971-1996 period using the multivariate cointegration and error correction model methodology. The results suggest that a stable long-run relationship exist between real M2, the interest rate differential, income and stock prices. Stock prices have a significant negative substitute effect on long-run as well as short-run broad-money demand (M2) and its omission can lead to serious misspecification in the money demand function. The analysis from the vector error correction model (VECM) and the Toda & Yamamoto (1995) causality tests find that money is endogenous and that there is at least a unidirectional relationship between stock prices and real M2. Stock prices Granger cause real M2 indirectly through income between interest rates and stock prices and stock prices and money stock. This paper comes to the conclusion that due to the endogeneity of money, M2 cannot be completely controlled by Malaysia's central bank. Therefore, in formulating future monetary policy, the response of money demand to stock prices should be considered.