The impact of monetary and fiscal policies on the French financial system

This paper presents a model of the French financial system and analyses the influence of policy instruments on one price (the interest rate) and two quantities (the stocks of bank credit and money). The development of hypotheses as to the behavior of the banking system and the public leads to a theoretical construct of the monetary system. After a comparative static analysis, the model is tested and the influence of policy instruments on the above mentioned three variables is empirically ascertained. Among other things, it is shown that the required reserve system is not optimally established and that some institutional reforms would improve the authorities' control over monetary processes.