Search Results
Working Paper
An endogenous growth model of money, banking, and financial repression
In this paper, we develop an endogenous growth model with financial intermediation to examine the effects of financial repression on growth, inflation, and welfare. By limiting the liquidity provision, binding reserve requirements always suppress economic growth while their effect on inflation is a function, among other things, of the degree of repression. For example, contrary to previous claims, if financial repression is severe enough so that an informal financial sector emerges, liberalization is inflationary. Notwithstanding, liberalization in these cases is always welfare improving. ...
Working Paper
A simple search model of money with heterogeneous agents and partial acceptability
Simple search models have equilibria where some agents accept money and others do not. We argue such equilibria should not be taken seriously - which is unfortunate if one wants a model with partial acceptability. We introduce heterogeneous agents and show partial acceptability arises naturally. There can be multiple equilibria with different degrees of acceptability. Given the type of heterogeneity we allow, the model is still simple: equilibria reduce to fixed points in [0,1]. We show that with other forms of heterogeneity, equilibria are generally fixed points in set space, and there ...
Working Paper
Sticky prices, money, and business fluctuations
Can nominal contracts create monetary nonneutrality if they arise endogenously in general equilibrium? Yes, if (1) agents have complete information about the money stock and (2) shocks to the system are purely redistributive and private information, precluding conventional insurance markets. Without contracts, money is neutral toward aggregate quantities. However, risk-sharing between suppliers and demanders creates an incentive for both parties to use nominal contracts. in particular, if an increase in the money growth rate signals a rise in the dispersion of shocks to demanders' wealth, ...
Working Paper
A unified framework for monetary theory and policy analysis
Search-theoretic models of monetary exchange are based on explicit descriptions of the frictions that make money essential. However, tractable versions usually have strong assumptions that make them ill suited for discussing some policy questions, especially those concerning changes in the money supply. Hence, most policy analysis uses reduced-form models. The authors propose a framework, designed to help bridge this gap, that is based explicitly on microeconomic frictions, but allows for interesting macroeconomic policy analyses. At the same time, the model is analytically tractable and ...
Journal Article
Adapting to instability in money demand: forecasting money growth with a time-varying parameter model
Conventional money demand models appear to be unstable, and this complicates the problem of conducting monetary policy. One way to deal with parameter instability is to learn how to adapt quickly when parameters shift. This paper applies a time-varying-parameter estimator to conventional money demand models and evaluates its usefulness as a forecasting tool. In relative terms, the time-varying-parameter estimator improves significantly on ordinary least squares. In absolute terms, we continue to have difficulty tracking money demand through turbulent periods.
Working Paper
A model in which outside and inside money are essential
I present an environment for which both outside and inside money are essential as means of payment. The key model feature is that there is imperfect monitoring of issuers of inside money. I use a random matching model of money where some agents have private trading histories and others have trading histories that can be publicly observed only after a lag. I show via an example that for lags that are neither too long nor too short, there exist allocations that use both types of money that cannot be duplicated when only one type is used. Inside money provides liquidity that increases the ...
Working Paper
Cointegration, seasonality, encompassing, and the demand for money in the United Kingdom
Virtually all previous narrow money demand studies for the United Kingdom have used seasonally adjusted data for money, prices, and expenditure. This paper develops a constant, data-coherent M1 demand equation for the United Kingdom with seasonally unadjusted data. For that model, we address issues of cointegration, error correction, generalto-specific modeling, dynamic specification, model evaluation and testing, parameter constancy, and exogeneity. We also establish theoretical and empirical relationships between seasonally adjusted and unadjusted data, and so between models using those ...
Working Paper
Money, interest, and capital in a cash-in-advance economy
A cash-in-advance constraint on consumption is incorporated into a standard model of consumption and capital accumulation. Monetary policy consists of lump-sum cash transfers. Methods are developed for establishing the existence and uniqueness of an equilibrium. and for explicitly constructing this equilibrium. The model economy's dependence on monetary policy is explored.
Working Paper
Optimal fiscal and monetary policy when money is essential
We study optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an environment where explicit frictions give rise to valued money, making money essential in the sense that it expands the set of feasible trades. Our main results are in stark contrast to the prescriptions of earlier flexible-price Ramsey models. Two especially important findings emerge from our work: the Friedman Rule is typically not optimal and inflation is stable over time. Inflation is not a substitute instrument for a missing tax, as is sometimes the case in standard Ramsey models. Rather, the inflation tax is exactly the right tax to use ...