The NOW account experiment and the demand for money

The authors use the NOW account experience in New England from 1972 to 1978 to estimate the responsiveness of the demand for money to interest payments on checkable accounts. Such an estimate is important in considering the effects on the demand for money of nationwide NOW's and of variations in interest rates on transactions balances in the future. With New England as the experimental region and the rest of the United States as a control group, the authors develop a cross-section, time-series framework to isolate and to estimate the interest rate responsiveness of money demand while accounting for effects of income, interest rates, and gradual adjustment.     

The precautionary demand for money: A rigorous foundation

Consumers' demand for money to hold is shown rigorously to be related to possible but uncertain purchase opportunities rather than to total consumption (income) or to the variability of bond yields. A formal model of consumers' demand for precautionary balances is analyzed. It implies that cash balances demanded will be changed by different amounts in response to equivalent changes in the rates of time preference and inflation. This perhaps explains recent instability in money demand estimates.     

The demand for money in EEC countries

This paper examines the demand for money in the EEC countries and is focussed on five issues. First it starts form a common economic framework, which allows for shifts from M 2 to non-money assets and vice versa. Second, special attention is given to the dynamic structure of the statistical model in order to obtain meaningful conclusions on, e.g., the speed of adjustment of actual to optimal money holdings. Third, the study is entirely based on a uniform set of quarterly data for the eight countries concerned. Fourth, the paper presents a careful examination of the residuals and, finally, analyses the predictive behaviour of the estimated models. For all countries we found long-run income elasticities greater than unity and interest rate elasticities clustered around -0.20. The impact of inflation and the business cycle variable appeared to be significant in the majority of countries considered.     

The role of money supply shocks in the short-run demand for money

Previous money-demand models are either inconsistent with contemporaneous adjustment of the price level to expected changes in the nominal money supply or imply implausible interest-rate fluctuations in response to innovations in nominal money. We propose a shock-absorber money- demand model in which money supply shocks affect the synchronization of asset transactions and so engender a temporary increase or decrease in desired money holdings. Expected changes do not engender such fluctuations in real money inventories. In simultaneous estimates for eight industrial countries, the shock-absorber model proved empirically superior.     

The transactions demand for money in a two-currency economy

In this paper the model of the transactions demand for money of Baumol (1952) is extended to an economy where transactions are conducted in two currencies. The currency substitution hypothesis - that the domestic demand for domestic money depends on the expected rate of depreciation, as well as the domestic rate of interest and level of income - is derived from the model. In addition, several new insights into the implications of currency substitution are provided.     

The demand for money in the Italian economy: 1867–1965

This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the demand for money in Italy using data for the period 1867–1965. It finds that during this time this demand was a stable function of two key variables: permanent income and the rate of interest.     

The transactions demand for money in a two-currency economy: A note

This note modifies transactions demands for monies, derived in a recent article in this Journal by Poloz (1984), by imposing a non-negativity constraint on balances of the superior currency. Imposition of this constraint alters the asset demand functions for the case where currency substitution is not profitable but bond transactions are. Currencies are held in a bundle, proportionate to transactions needs, and substitution occurs between bonds and the currency bundle based on the rate of return on bonds relative to the currency bundle. In contrast to Poloz, the relevant rate of return variable is independent of whether exchange rate appreciation or depreciation is expected.     

Monetary anticipations and the demand for money

It has recently been argued that unanticipated changes in nominal money supply should affect the real demand for money, and empirical results which appear to support this hypothesis have been presented. Unfortunately, the econometric techniques used by previous authors yield severel biased estimates. In this paper we show how valid estimates may easily be obtained, and present some illustrative empirical results using U.S. data. These results do not support the conclusions of earlier authors. We find that unanticipated money supply changes do indeed affect the real demand for money, but with the wrong sign, and that anticipated changes also have a significant effect.A consistency test for all models employing the anticipated-unanticipated distinction is also proposed.     

Currency substitution and the precautionary demand for money

Although the implications of currency substitution have received considerable attention recently, the microeconomic foundations of this phenomenon seem largely to have been taken for granted. The present paper considers the precautionary motive for holding cash balances as one possible motivation for the currency substitution hypothesis. A three-asset model is presented in which transaction costs are explicit and an agent is faced with uncertain cash requirements in two different currencies. The role played by the expected rate of depreciation in the optimal portfolio allocation is found to conform with prior beliefs.     

The individual's transactions demand for money: A utility maximization approach

This model of the transactions demand shows how an individual may simultaneously choose patterns of consumption, money holdings, and bond holdings over time that maximize utility when faced with a wide variety of possible cyclical patterns in his flow of income. Interesting conclusions about the transactions demand and the real balance effect are derived. For example, there is no theoretical reason to believe that a single individual's demand for money is proportional to his income, and a small excess stock of money is likely to cause a large increase in his level of consumption.     

Stock prices and demand for money in China: New evidence

This paper investigates the relationship between stock prices and the real money demands for China within a cointegrated framework. This study reports two important results. First, test results reveal that a stable long-term relationship exists between broad money (M2) and its determinants including real income, foreign interest rate, and stock prices. Second, stock prices have a significant substitute (positive) effect on long-run broad-money (M2) demand and its omission can lead to serious misspecification in the money demand function in both the short- and long-run. Finally, we demonstrate that long-run income elasticity is not significantly different from unity with the inclusion of stock prices in the money demand equation.     

The role of wealth in the money demand function: A comment

This paper raises two criticisms with respect to the result advanced by Ando and Shell according to which money demand should be independent from wealth variations. First, it is shown that, even within the assumptions of the Ando and Shell model, there is in general a range of wealth variation over which money balances respond positively to wealth. Second, the result of those authors is criticized on the basis that it essentially derives from an inadequate comparative statics experiment on asset demands.     

A note extending Tobin's inventory demand for money model

This paper is a modification and extension of Tobin's inventory demand for money model. The optimal financial management behavior of both individuals receiving wage income at discrete intervals and firms making such wage payments is analyzed within the general Tobin framework. In both cases it is assumed that the portfolio decision-maker takes into account the interest income generated by investment and includes it in the expenditure plan. The compounding of interest is allowed, and the problem is solved in its precise, integer from rather than approximated by a continuous treatment. The basic strategy of evenly spaced transactions proves optimal here as in the Tobin model, but the decision as to the number of transactions to make per interval is considerably more complicated in this version of the problem.     

The impact of capital account liberalization measures

In this paper we analyze whether capital account liberalization leads to higher asset prices. Based on a sample of 242 non-financial firms listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at the time of the announcement of the relaxation of capital control in Thailand on January 29, 2007, we find positive and significant abnormal returns on Day −2, Day 1, and Day 3 relative to the announcement day. Our findings suggest that capital account liberalization favorably affects stock prices of firms, though the effect varies across industries. From a public policy perspective, our results suggest that liberalizing capital account by relaxing capital control measures could improve firm value in the short-term, which may, in turn, boost the level of economic growth in the long run. In addition, the results show that there is a significant fall in the mean beta in the post-liberalization period, thereby implying the lower cost of capital.     

Black-market exchange-rate expectations and the domestic demand for money: Some empirical results

This paper analyzes the effects of expectations about future exchange-rate adjustments on the demand for money. These effects are studied empirically for the case of countries which have imposed foreign-exchange restrictions. The results obtained for Brazil, Chile, and Colombia indicate that the demand for money is significantly reduced when expectations of black-market depreciation intensify; and that when this variable (for which the proxy used is the divergence of the black-market exchange rate from purchasing power parity) is omitted from the demand-for-money function, the response of the demand for money to changes in the expected rate of domestic inflation tends to be overestimated.