Non-connectedness of the set of equilibrium money prices: The overlapping-generations economy

Consider the overlapping-generations economy with nominal taxes and transfers. Under some conditions, the set of equilibrium money prices is a non-negative interval. It has not been known whether this set can consist of two or more disjoint intervals. Three examples are provided here in which the set of equilibrium money prices is a non-connected set. The examples are for a finite-horizon balanced economy, an infinite-horizon balanced economy, and an infinite-horizon non-balanced economy.     

The workings of a commodity money system in an incomplete information macro model

This paper compares the properties of a token money system with that of a commodity money system in an uncertain environment. In an incomplete information world, relative prices are not known with certainty. However, a commodity money system provides some information because the nominal price of the monetary commodity is known. The benefits of this information-enhancing function may be offset, though by distortions in relative prices relative to their full information Walrasian equilibrium values. Because the two systems have vastly different structural parameters, we cannot unambiguously state which system is welfare superior.     

The fiscal theory of the price level and initial government debt

It is widely believed that the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level (FTPL) does not work in an environment in which initial government debt is zero. This paper demonstrates that this view is incorrect when the government issues a set of financial assets restricted to standard nominal debt contracts and money. In particular, it is possible to define a non-Ricardian fiscal policy for which the set of equilibrium price sequences under non-Ricardian fiscal policy is a proper subset of the set of equilibrium price sequences under Ricardian fiscal policy.     

Money,nonconvex preferences,and the existence of equilibrium: A note

Nonconvexities play a major role in several theories of money. This note suggests an additional such role. In particular, an economy is presented which fails to have a competitive equilibrium in the absence of fiat money. When fiat money is present, a steady-state competitive, equilibrium does exist and has the feature that money necessarily has value. This is because in any steady state, monetary equilibrium relative prices are bounded in such a way that the discontinuous portions of excess demand functions may become irrelevant.     

Causality between money and prices in Indonesia

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between money supply and prices in Indonesia, where money supply is taken to be the stock of narrow money (currency + demand deposits) and prices are proxied by the Jakarta cost of living index. The period studied is 1969–1980. Two concepts of causality namely “proper” causality in which the causal effect takes at least one quarter to manifest itself and “instantaneous” causality in which there are no lags, are employed. The hypothesis of “proper” causality is rejected by bothGranger andSims tests. However, the hypothesis that money and prices are contemporaneously correlated cannot be easily dismissed. Using the framework of [Geweke], contemporaneous causality is treated as a part of linear feedback and the lagged version of Sims test was used. We found that the hypothesis that prices cause money supply cannot be dismissed on the basis of Wald test. However, the contribution of instantaneous causality is very large to the total variance of linear feedback.     

Central bank instruments, fiscal policy regimes, and the requirements for equilibrium determinacy

This paper examines the role of the monetary instrument choice for local equilibrium determinacy under sticky prices and different fiscal policy regimes. Corresponding to Benhabib et al.'s results for interest rate feedback rules [Benhabib, J., Schmitt-Grohé, S., Uribe, M., 2001. Monetary policy and multiple equilibria. American Economic Review 91, 167–185], the money growth rate should not rise by more than one for one with inflation when the primary surplus is raised with public debt. Under an exogenous primary surplus, money supply should be accommodating—such that real balances grow with inflation—to ensure local equilibrium determinacy. When the central bank links the supply of money to government bonds by controlling the bond-to-money ratio, an inflation stabilizing policy can be implemented for both fiscal policy regimes. Local determinacy is then ensured when the bond-to-money ratio is not extremely sensitive to inflation, or when interest payments on public debt are entirely tax financed, i.e., the budget is balanced.     

Population ageing and inflation with endogenous money creation

This paper models a mechanism through which population ageing may induce a deflationary process. We propose an overlapping-generations model (OLG) with money created by credits (inside money) and intergenerational trade. The model links demographic factors, such as fertility rates and longevity, to prices. We show that lower fertility rates lead to smaller demand for credit and lower money creation, which in turn cause a decline in prices. Changes in longevity affect prices through real savings and the capital market. Furthermore, a few links between interest rates and inflation are addressed; they arise in the general equilibrium and are not thoroughly discussed in literature. Long-run results are derived analytically; short-run dynamics are simulated numerically.     

Mixed-strategy equilibria in the Nash Demand Game

In the Nash Demand Game, each of the two players announces the share he demands of an amount of money that may be split between them. If the demands can be satisfied, they are; otherwise, neither player receives any money. This game has many pure-strategy equilibria. This paper characterizes mixed-strategy equilibria. The condition critical for an equilibrium is that players’ sets of possible demands be balanced. Two sets of demands are balanced if each demand in one set can be matched with a demand in the other set such that they sum to one. For Nash’s original game, a complete characterization is given of the equilibria in which both players’ expected payoffs are strictly positive. The findings are applied to the private provision of a discrete public good.     

Patinkin,Walras and the 'money-in-the-utility-function' tradition

This paper concentrates on Patinkin's use of Walras' model in his attempt at providing a proper theory of the price of money integrated with the theory of relative prices. Patinkin stands as the last major contributor to a Walras-Hicks-Patinkin tradition based on an attempt at introducing money into the agent's utility function. More in Hicks than in Walras' footsteps, Patinkin gives a clear priority to money as a store of value over an assumed function as a means of exchange. It is also shown how confident the profession was in the early 1950s in the ability of general equilibrium to provide theoretical foundations to the neo-classical synthesis. However, the similitudes between the technique used by Walras and Patinkin are only a smokescreen behind which very different intentions are hidden.     

Money in the pure consumption loan model

The purpose of this paper is to show how modern techniques of Temporary competitive equilibrium analysis can be applied to models of the “pure consumption loan model” type. One considers Samuelson's simplest model where traders live two periods and where money is the only store of value. It is proved that a temporary equilibrium exists if price expectations are sufficiently independent of current prices. A stationary market equilibrium is shown to exist if there is a set of traders (i) whose total resources are greater when they are young than when they are old, (ii) who are indifferent between present and future consumption. It is proved that this existence theorem still holds if the economy is sufficiently “close” to an economy which has this property. A stationary market equilibrium is shown to be Pareto optimal if all traders hold positive cash balances. It may be inefficient if this condition is not satisfied, for some traders may then be willing to borrow, which they cannot do in this model.     

Long-Run Links among Money, Prices and Output: Worldwide Evidence

Abstract. Starting from the quantity theory of money we analyse the dynamic relationships between money, real output and prices for an unbalanced panel of 110 economies. Complementary to trivariate analyses we also adopt a P-star model explaining inflation via an equilibrium price level (P-star), which in turn depends on potential output and money. A key issue of the paper is the cross-sectional stability of estimation and inference results. We find cointegration among the considered variables. Particularly for high inflation countries homogeneity between prices and money cannot be rejected. Given homogeneity we find evidence for an error-correction mechanism linking current price changes and the lagged price gap. Parameter estimates indicating the adjustment towards the price equilibrium are larger in absolute value for high inflation countries. The latter results indicate that central banks, even in high inflation countries, can improve price stability by controlling monetary growth.     

Monetary policy and asset prices

The purpose of this paper is study the effect of monetary policy on asset prices. We study the properties of a monetary model in which a real asset is valued for its rate of return and for its liquidity. We show that money is essential if and only if real assets are scarce, in the precise sense that their supply is not sufficient to satisfy the demand for liquidity. Our model generates a clear connection between asset prices and monetary policy. When money grows at a higher rate, inflation is higher and the return on money decreases. In equilibrium, no arbitrage amounts to equating the real return of both objects. Therefore, the price of the asset increases in order to lower its real return. This negative relationship between inflation and asset returns is in the spirit of research in finance initiated in the early 1980s.     

Economies with price-dependent preferences

With the exception of existence, not much is known of economies where individual preferences may depend on prices. We show that the main properties of competitive equilibria that fall under the general heading of qualitative comparative statics remain true when preferences are price-dependent, provided that the total resources are allowed to vary in the parameter space. The equilibrium set is a smooth manifold diffeomorphic to a Euclidean space; the natural projection is a smooth proper map, with topological degree one; equilibria always exist, and are locally unique for an open and dense set of economies.     

Relative prices and the demand for money

This paper examines the validity of the conventional specification of money demand with particular reference to the issue of relative prices. It is shown that the conventional money demand function is based on the assumption of weak separability of money from commodities, which forms the basis for the absence of relative prices in money demand. Empirical and presumptive evidence suggests that weak separability is not tenable, implying that relative prices are important in money demand. The inclusion of commodity prices in money demand significantly affects the interest and income elasticity estimates. Finally, it is noted that the aggregate consumption function excluding commodity prices also has no theoretical and empirical base.     

Search cost,trading strategies and optimal market structure

The theory of Walrasian equilibrium yields a set of prices at which the aggregate competitive demand for each commodity equals its aggregate competitive supply. However, even at equilibrium prices the theory of competitive equilibrium does not explicitly offer explanation regarding the manner in which trades are actually executed. This paper considers a model where trade takes place in a decentralized fashion and examines in a dynamic game-theoretic framework, the role of social institution of money and markets in facilitating exchange. The steady state Nash equilibrium derived in the paper demonstrates how, depending on the level of transaction costs associated with a market setup (synonymously, trading posts to exchange possible pairs of goods) appropriate monetary trade emerges, which like a hub and spoke network (Starr and Stinchcombe, 1999) makes some markets non-functioning and in equilibrium only the markets having trade through the medium of exchange continue to exist. However, despite the obvious advantages of a market setup in reducing search costs, pure random search for a complementary trading partner (as considered by Ostroy and Starr, 1974; Kiyotaki and Wright , 1989; and others) prevails in many economies, especially, in many developing economies. This paper models this feature of developing economies by introducing differences in transaction costs across agents and shows why sustainable equilibria might exist exhibiting random search for certain commodities even in the presence of established markets.     

Mechanisms for a spatially distributed market

We consider the problem of a spatially distributed market with strategic agents. A single good is traded in a set of independent markets, where shipment between markets is possible but costly. The problem has previously been studied in the non-strategic case, in which it can be analyzed and solved as a min-cost-flow problem. We consider the case where buyers and sellers are strategic. Our first result gives a double characterization of the VCG prices, first as distances in a certain residue graph and second as the minimal (for buyers) and maximal (for sellers) equilibrium prices. This provides a computationally efficient, individually rational and incentive compatible welfare maximizing mechanism. This mechanism is, necessarily, not budget balanced and we also provide a budget-balanced mechanism (which is also computationally efficient, incentive compatible and individually rational) that achieves high welfare. Finally, we present results for some extensions of the model.     

Search, Bargaining, Money, and Prices Under Private Information

This paper presents a model of money and search where bargaining determines prices and the quality of goods is private information. It studies how a lemons problem affects the purchasing power of money. There are multiple, Pareto-ranked equilibria. The superior equilibrium, where no lemons are produced, exists even if information about quality is relatively scarce. In other equilibria, there is price dispersion, and uninformed buyers pay higher prices than informed buyers for all goods. Taxing money balances (a proxy for inflation) makes buyers less selective, thus reducing the average quality of supply and the premium paid for known quality.     

Disequilibrium dynamics with monetarist price expectations

In this note we sketch the main features of the dynamic evolution of a rationed equilibrium macroeconomic model in which prices and wages respond to excess demands and inflation expectations, and the money stock is endogenous. We postulate monetarist inflation expectations, i.e., expected inflation is assumed to be equal to the current percentage rate of change of the money stock. If the system is stable, monetarist inflation expectations are asymptotically rational.     

KEYNES ON WAGE FLEXIBILITY AND THE AUSTRALIAN WAGES SYSTEM*

Keynes' General Theory briefly discusses the Australian wages system, as an example of a system in which an attempt was made to fix real wages by law. Keynes argues that such a system, strictly enforced, generates an unstable unemployment equilibrium or highly volatile money wages and prices. This paper clarifies Keynes' views on the Australian system, with a view to their wider relevance for the significance of real and money wage flexibility and inflexibility in Keynes' economics. The most striking finding is that money wage stickiness is a conclusion, not an assumption, of Keynes' theory of employment.     

NATIONAL ACCOUNTS AT CONSTANT PRICES

This article discusses the problem of compiling a balanced set of national accounts at constant prices. The method adopted is based on earlier work on this subject by Burge and Geary. Commodity flows, which are uniquely deflatable, are expressed at constant prices and savings in constant prices is obtained by preserving a balanced set of equations in real terms. The deflation of the external account is discussed.
A method is suggested for expressing the national income account in real terms and an "income gain" is deduced for each industrial sector which represents the difference between real income and real product in that sector. The sum of the income gains for the domestic sectors is zero.
The constituents of the income/expenditure accounts of households, corporations and general government are expressed at constant prices by selecting suitable deflators in a consistent manner. The accounts in real terms are now unbalanced and are balanced again by inserting a balancing item which is shown to represent a gain to the sector arising from changes in the terms of trade between the sectors. This item is called an "expenditure gain". The sum of the expenditure gains for the institutional sectors is zero.
The system suggested can be extended to cover additional items in the accounts and thus a complete set of national accounts in real terms can be derived.