Stability of Velocity in the Major Industrial Countries: A Kalman Filter Approach

Abstract

Forecasting models are estimated using annual data for the income velocity of money in seven major industrial countries. The predictions are conditional on the realized value of the long-term domestic government bond rate. These forecasts did not deteriorate over the period 1980-88, compared with the earlier postwar period. Velocity of M1 is found to be very interest elastic in almost all countries; velocity of M2, less so. The specifications (based on Kalman filters) point to a nonconstant trend in velocity, raising questions about the assumptions required for the cointegration techniques used in other research on money demand.