This paper develops a new utility-based monetary aggregate which we label the currency equivalent aggregate. This aggregate equals the stock of currency that would be required for households to obtain the same liquidity services that they get from their entire collection of monetary assets. We compare the ability of the new aggregate and conventional aggregates, such as Ml and M2, and other indicators of monetary policy to forecast real activity. The CE aggregate has more predictive power for output and prices than standard aggregates, and the time path of the estimated output response is more consistent with broad classes of theoretical models.
Excerpt from Money, Output, and Prices Evidence From a New Monetary Aggregate How monetary shocks affect prices and real activity are two of the central questions in macroeconomics. The implications of various theoretical models addressing these issues have been explored in literally hundreds of empirical papers. Despite the substantial interest in what money does, there is little consensus on what money is. Most previous empirical studies use relatively arbitrary rules in deciding which assets are monetary, and which are not. By choosing to study how the monetary base, or M1, or M2, affects prices and real activity, researchers implicitly made judgments about the identity of monetary assets. Narrow definitions of money, such as the base, exclude a variety of assets that provide liquidity services. Broader definitions, such as M2, give equal weight to a variety of assets with arguably quite different liquidities. This is hardly more defensible than constructing a measure of GNP by adding together the physical volume of output in different industries! A more attractive approach involves weighting different assets by the value of the monetary services they provide. This principle underlies Barnett's(1980) derivation of Divisia monetary aggregates. The continued widespread use of conventional aggregates is particularly surprising, since research has repeatedly shown Divisia aggregates to be at least as good at predicting GNP. In this paper we propose a new monetary aggregate, the currency-equivalent (CE) aggregate, which is related to the Divisia aggregates. The CE aggregate is a time-varying weighted average of the stocks of different monetary assets, with weights which depend on each asset's yield relative to that on a benchmark "zero liquidity" asset. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from Money, Output, and Prices Evidence From a New Monetary Aggregate Some assets can readily be used for transactions. Individuals pay for the liquidity that these assets offer by foregoing the higher expected returns that are available on other, less liquid assets. Holding one dollar in currency costs more than holding one dollar in a now account, and it presumably generates greater liquidity services. We formalize this idea by assuming that individuals derive utility from holding certain assets. Our results could also be obtained by assuming that individuals and firms incur transactions costs which depend negatively on asset-holdings and positively on the volume of transactions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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The paper examines the effects of exchange rate fluctuations on real output and the price level in a sample of 33 developing countries. The theoretical model decomposes movements in the exchange rate into anticipated and unanticipated components. Unanticipated currency fluctuations help to determine aggregate demand through exports, imports, and the demand for domestic currency, and aggregate supply through the cost of imported intermediate goods. Anticipated exchange rate depreciation, through the supply channel, has limited effects on output growth and inflation. Unanticipated currency fluctuations appear more significant, with varying effects on output growth and price inflation across developing countries.
Three empirical findings presented in this paper show that evidence based on the most recent U.S. experience does not indicate the kind of close or reliable relationship between money and nonfinancial economic activity that, if present, might warrant basing the design and implementation of monetary policy on money in a formally systematic way: First, extending the familiar time-series analysis to include data from the 1980s sharply weakens the evidence from prior periods showing that such relationships existed between money and nominal income, or between money and either real income or prices considered separately. Focusing on data from 1970 onward destroys this evidence altogether. Second, the finding by Stock and Watson that particular forms of time-series experiments still showed a significant role for money in affecting real output through 1985 not only becomes weaker on the inclusion of data from 1986 and 1987 but also, even for data through 1985 only, turns out to depend on the use in their analysis of a particular short-term interest rate, the Treasury bill rate. Using instead the commercial paper rate, which apparently is superior in capturing the information in financial prices that matters for real output, also greatly weakens their result. Simultaneously using the commercial paper rate and including data through 1987 destroys it altogether. Third, extending the analysis through 1987 also destroys the time-series evidence from earlier periods showing that money and income are co-integrated. Even if monetary policy were to be conducted in terms of targets for money growth, the failure of money and income to be co-integrated means that there is no empirical ground for resisting the "base drift" that results from persistent random differences between actual money growth and the corresponding target.
This paper re-examines the causality relationship between monetary aggregates, output and prices in the case of Malaysia. The study is based upon a vector autoregression (VAR) model applying the Granger no-causality procedure developed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995). The results indicate a two-way causality running between monetary aggregates, M2 and M3 and output which is consistent with theoretically conjecture by Keynesian and Monetarist views whereas there is a one-way causality running from monetary aggregate, M1 and output. In addition, the results suggest that all monetary aggregates have a strong one-way causality running from money to prices but no evidence for the opposite causality. Thus, the results add the empirical support to the argument in the literature that inflation is a monetary phenomenon.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible role of money shocks on output and prices in the euro area. Since no Divisia monetary aggregates are available for the euro area, we first create and make available a database on euro-area Divisia monetary aggregates. We plan to update the dataset in the future and keep it publicly available. Using different SVAR models, we find sensible and statistically significant responses to Divisia money shocks, while the responses to simple-sum measures of money and interest rates are not statistically significant, and sometimes even the point estimates are not sensible.
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