Policy Rules and Monetarist Arithmetic

This note demonstrates the existence of an important equilibrium path overlooked in the literature on monetarist arithmetic. Pleasant monetarist arithmetic is possible when the interest‐elasticity of money demand exceeds unity. In this case, tight money may lead to a transitory increase in seigniorage, the retirement of government debt, and lower inflation in both the short run and the long run. The set of equilibrium paths is sensitive, however, to the form of the policy rule. Pleasant monetarist arithmetic is not an equilibrium if the policy rule fixes the share of the fiscal deficit financed by seigniorage. Both pleasant monetarist arithmetic and the tight‐money paradox are equilibrium paths when the government's commitment to low money growth is conditional on inflation remaining below its previous level.     

The inflationary experiences of six developing countries in Asia: an investigation of underlying determinants

This paper investigates major deteminats of the inflation rate in six Asian developing countries. The sample includes low and moderate-high inflation cases. For the investigation a monetarist model of the inflation rate adjusted to account for important external factors is used. The results show that the growth of the money stock was not a primary source of inflation in all countries. However, various factors that influence the public's willingness to hold money are behind inflationary pressures across countries. Among these, some are external factors stemming from changes in foreign interst rates and import prices. Overall, the evidence suggests that the success of domestic policy in fighting inflation is highly dependent on the unique inflationary experience of each country.     

Inflation and output dynamics with a floating exchange rate

The purpose of this paper is to extend a simple monetarist model of price output fluctuations in a closed economy to the case of a small open economy with a floating exchange rate. Trade and capital flows are explicitly incorporated into the model, exchange rate expectations and inflation expectations are treated separately and exchange rate expectations are integrated into the demand for money function. The properties of the model are investigated under the limiting cases of perfect capital mobility and zero capital mobility. Stability conditions and short run price-output trade-offs are derived and the conclusions for cyclical output patterns are deduced. It is also shown how the short run movement of the exchange rate deviates from purchasing power parity in a systematic fashion.     

Money and Inflation: International Evidence Based on Cointegration Theory

This study investigates the relationship between money and inflation using cointegration tests. For a broad sample of countries, the paper finds that most time series data underlying a typical monetarist model are nonstationary, indicating that it is necessary to appropriately transform the data in order to render the confidence tests reliable. Our principal finding is that money and inflation are related only in countries with high inflation [E 31]     

Deficit spending,money, and inflation: Some international empirical evidence

An attempt is made, in this study, to examine the monetarist propositions regarding the effects of budget deficits on money growth and inflation for ten industrialized countries. To this end, a two-equation econometric model consisting of the money supply growth and inflation equations has been specified and estimated. Based on the results, it is concluded that, in general, the government budget deficit is not a determinant of money supply growth or of inflation (directly or indirectly). The U.S. is an exception with some statistical evidence of direct and indirect effects of the budget deficit on inflation.     

Budget deficits,money growth and inflation: the Turkish evidence

The paper investigates the long-run relationships between budget deficits, inflation and monetary growth in Turkey considering two alternative trivariate systems corresponding to the narrowest and the broadest monetary aggregates. While the joint endogeneity of money and inflation rejects the validity of the monetarist view, lack of a direct relationship between inflation and budget deficits makes the pure fiscal theory explanations illegitimate for the Turkish case. Consistent with the policy regime of financing domestic debt through the commercial banking system, budget deficits lead to a growth not of currency seigniorage but of broad money in Turkey. This mode of deficit financing, leading to the creation of near money and restricting the scope for an effective monetary policy, may not be sustainable, as the government securities/broad money ratio cannot grow without limit.     

Expected inflation, expected stock returns, and money illusion: What can we learn from survey expectations?

We show empirically that survey-based measures of expected inflation are significant and strong predictors of future aggregate stock returns in several industrialized countries both in-sample and out-of-sample. Empirically discriminating between competing sources of this return predictability by virtue of a comprehensive set of expectations data, we find that money illusion seems to be the driving force behind our results. Another popular hypothesis – inflation as a proxy for aggregate risk aversion – is not supported by thedata.     

股票价格、实体经济与货币政策研究——基于我国1997-2011年的经验证据

本文运用格兰杰因果关系检验和向量自回归方法分析了1997年1月至2011年6月我国股票价格、GDP、通货膨胀率和货币政策的关系,实证结果表明,在中国,股票价格对通货膨胀的效应为正向,即股市上涨能带动通货膨胀水平的上涨。股票市场对GDP的影响短期内主要表现为替代效应,长期来看,则是财富效应和投资效应占主导;同时,货币供应量和利率对股票价格均有影响,但影响均不显著。通过格兰杰因果关系检验发现,利率变动导致货币供应量和股票价格发生变化。而货币供应量的变化影响着通货膨胀,也一定程度影响利率和股票价格。通过广义脉冲响应发现,中国人民银行紧缩性的利率政策并不能抑制股票价格上涨。增加货币供给短期内能够推动股市上涨,但长期对股市仍没有效果。     

Monetary Disequilibrium, Endogenous Money, Stability and the Determinacy of Inflation

This paper examines the stability of the disequilibrium money model, with endogenous money and transitory interest rate control by the Central Bank. In the tradition of the post-Keynesian literature, the money supply is determined by bank lending and disequilibrium between money demand and supply determines the business cycle. The rate of interest is assumed to react to an inflation target and inflation responds to the business cycle. The paper examines the stability of the model under three inflation response systems: the accelerationist model, adaptive expectations and rational expectations.
(J.E.L.: E3, E4, E5).     

The demand for money during a period of inflationary expectations. Some FIML based estimates for Greece

This paper estimates and tests a model of the demand for money function, which uses the public's expectations of future inflation as a proxy of the opportunity cost of holding money. The hallmark of the paper is that expectations are rational inMuth sense. The cross-equation rational expectations restrictions are derived and then tested, using quarterly Greek data of the high inflation period 1973I to 1981 IV. The paper concludes that the evidence is consistent with the rational expectations assumption and supports the adopted specification of the money demand function.     

Would helicopter money be spent? New evidence for the Netherlands

According to some economists, central banks should use ‘helicopter money’ to boost inflation (expectations). Based on a survey among Dutch households, we examine whether respondents would spend the money received via such a transfer. Our results show that respondents expect to spend about 30% of the transfer and that helicopter money would hardly affect inflation expectations. Furthermore, whether transfers come from the central bank or the government makes no difference. Finally, our results suggest that the effect of helicopter money on public trust in the ECB is ambiguous.     

The monetarist versus the neo-Keynesian views on inflation: Some Italian evidence

This empirical inquiry investigates the relative merits of the monetarist and the neo-Keynesian hypotheses regarding the behavior of inflation in the Italian economy over the 1955–1983 period. Based on testing three alternative dynamic models that have been proposed in the literature, the empirical results support the monetarist proposition that unemployment has an insignificant impact upon inflation, a finding that is at odds with the neo-Keynesian hypothesis. Indeed, consistent with the monetarist hypothesis, the results suggest that the rate of monetary expansion is a prime determinant of the rate of inflation and its acceleration in Italy.     

我国居民通胀预期的测度:基于银行间债券市场数据的方法

通胀预期测度是通胀预期管理的前提。文章基于通货膨胀持久性特征,在无套利假设下,将实际通胀率这一宏观变量纳入传统的因子模型中,并运用银行间债券市场收益率数据对我国居民通胀预期进行了估计,结果显示我国居民通胀预期并不完全满足理性预期假设,而是与实际通胀之间存在有规律的系统性偏差,短期实际利率的变动是造成偏差的主要原因。文章认为通过强化货币政策前瞻性可以消除这种偏差,从而抑制实际通货膨胀水平。     

Keynes‐Marx and Keynes‐Wicksell Models of Monetary Growth: A framework for future analysis

This paper reconsiders and generalizes a dichotomizing two-sector real growth model of Marglin which claims that the steady state of capitalist economies is plagued by secular inflation. We show that this implication need not be true from the perspective of a more general steady state analysis and that the Marglin model can be embedded into a general Keynes‐Marx‐Friedman or Keynes‐Wicksell framework where money is superneutral, where therefore inflation is due solely to excessive monetary growth, where the private sector is basically asymptotically stable and where there is a steady state rate of employment that differs from the 'natural' rate of employment of monetarist models of inflation. We consider this model a benchmark model that requires equally general alternatives if the above implications are to be rejected.     

Financial market imperfections and monetary policy strategy

In a model with imperfect money, credit and reserve markets, we examine if an inflation-targeting central bank applying the funds rate operating procedure to indirectly control market interest rates also needs a monetary aggregate as policy instrument. We show that if private agents use information extracted from money and financial markets to form inflation expectations and if interest rate pass-through is incomplete, the central bank can use a narrow monetary aggregate and the discount interest rate as independent and complementary policy instruments to reinforce the credibility of its announcements and the role of inflation target as a nominal anchor for inflation expectations. This study shows how a monetary policy strategy combining inflation targeting and monetary targeting can be conceived to guarantee macroeconomic stability and the credibility of monetary policy. Friedman's k-percent money growth rule, which can generate dynamic instability, and two alternative stabilizing feedback monetary targeting rules are examined.     

资产选择、风险偏好与储蓄存款需求

本文以消费者最优资产选择模型为基础,采用局部均衡分析方法探讨了通货膨胀、股市收益波动、消费者风险偏好对储蓄存款需求的影响。2001年6月以后,通货膨胀方差下降,股市持续下跌,股市收益率下降,收益率方差也有所下降,但货币需求却加速增长。本文根据不同的相对风险回避指数,模拟了利率、通货膨胀、股市收益率、股市收益率方差等因素对2001年6月至2005年9月平均储蓄存款的影响。在适当的相对风险回避指数下,储蓄存款增加的30%左右可以由这些因素解释;如果不考虑GDP等规模变量,股市收益率下降是导致平均货币需求增长的主要因素。     

The speed of adjustment of the actual to the desired money stock: A comparative study

This article examines whether there are significant differences in the speed of adjustment of the actual to the desired money stock among major industrialized countries. Demand for money functions, including a partial adjustment hypothesis, were estimated for the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France and Japan essentially over the period 1960–1976. The functions were tested for stability and found to be stable in most cases. The estimations show that, mainly with the exception of Germany and the United Kingdom for broad money, the speed of adjustment is relatively high. These results tend to support monetarist views. The statistical test for differences in the speed of adjustment revealed that only a few significant differences exist when narrow money is used. When broad money is used, howeever, the United Kingdom and Germany are shown to have significantly slower speeds of adjustment than almost all the other countries.     

Rationalizing the Political Business Cycle: A Workhorse Model

An incumbent policymaker has incentives to expand the money supply prior to elections to stimulate the economy and thereby further her chances of re-election. In its original formulation, the Nordhaus political business cycle hypothesis relies on adaptive inflation expectations and naive retrospective voting.
This article develops a simple model of a political cycle in inflation and output growth, assuming rational inflation expectations and rational retrospective voting. Voter scrutiny of the incumbent's economic performance has policy and selection effects, with ambiguous consequences for welfare: the policymaker manipulates the money supply for electoral purposes, but an incumbent of above average quality is more likely to remain in office.     

Some reflections on the current state of the monetarist debate

Conclusion This paper has surveyed the status of five monetarist propositions. On one of them, the role of money in income changes, there has been a substantial coming together of Keynesians and monetarists, though the gap between them is still major. On the second, the transmission process, the standard Keynesian criticism of monetarism as a black box does not seem compelling, though this, of course, does not necessarily imply that the monetarist transmission process is superior to the Keynesian one. Concerning the third issue, the stability of the private sector, neither side is able to make a halfway convincing case; we just do not know the answer. The fourth issue, the use of a money stock target versus an interest rate target, is also an issue about which we know little, though the case for using a money stock target does seem the stronger. Finally, there is the dispute about a monetary growth rate rule. Here, too, the available evidence is far from convincing.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at seminars at the University of Freiburg and the Technical University of Vienna. The author is indebted for helpful comments to Thomas Cargill, Helmut Frisch, Steven Sheffrin and Ronald Teigen who, of course, are not responsible for any remaining errors.     

Endogenous expectation formation methods: Evidence from consumers' inflation expectations

This paper analyzes qualitative survey data on consumers' inflation expectations with the multinomial probit model. The results provide evidence that consumers' expectations depend on monetary and fiscal policy data, unemployment rates and pas inflation rates and that consumers' forecast differently during periods of low and high inflation rates. The analysis indicates that the government policy data, especially money growth rates, had a larger impact on the expectations during periods of high inflation. The paper provides support for the hypothesis that expectation formation methods depend on economic conditions.