Monetary Aggregates Research Articles

Divisia monetary aggregates, monetary policy and business cycle analysis

Abstract The paper builds a parsimonious US business cycle SVARMA model, establishing identification conditions for independent monetary shocks. The SVARMA model, utilizing Divisia M3 and Divisia M4, is compared to the simple sum M2. The monetary rule with Divisia M3 yields theoretically consistent results marked by the absence of the usual price and liquidity puzzles. As the Federal Reserve (Fed) took a more hawkish approach to curb inflation, significant increases in US interest rates and declines in monetary aggregates were largely influenced by the Fed’s reaction function, which incorporates the Divisia M3 monetary rule. Findings emphasize the monetary impact on the business cycle, highlighting the significance of Divisia monetary aggregates. Historical and variance decompositions reveal diverse, dynamic effects of monetary shocks on macroeconomic variables. The SVARMA model with Divisia M3 and M4 demonstrates superior performance over simple sum M2 in capturing the time path of monetary shocks.

Money/Asset Ratio as a Predictor of Inflation

This paper modifies the quantity theory of money to forecast inflation, relating the latter to scale variables such as monetary aggregate M2 and government bonds that measure the money demand for asset transactions. The out-of-sample forecast results show that at least since the early 1990s, the money/asset model that uses the money supply/government debt ratio as a predictor has been significantly improved upon univariate and multivariate models, such as Phillips curve and term spread models, for forecasting U.S. inflation over one- to three-year horizons. In using real-time vintage data, I find that, since 2000Q1, the forecasts derived from the money/asset model have slightly improved upon those from the Greenbook in forecasting quarter-over-quarter CPI inflation at short horizons, from two- to four-quarter. These results imply that the Federal Reserve can use the money supply/government debt ratio to forecast and control the inflation rates, coordinating monetary policy with fiscal policy. Moreover, the money supply/government debt ratio can partly explain the U.S. inflation dynamics from the early 1960s until COVID-19.

Nexus between Monetary Indicators and Bitcoin in Selected Sub-Saharan Africa: A Panel ARDL

The rapid adoption and growing prominence of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have sparked significant interest and debate among economists, policymakers, and financial analysts. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where traditional financial systems often face challenges such as limited access to banking services, high transaction costs, and volatile currencies, Bitcoin presents both opportunities and risks. Understanding the interplay between Bitcoin and key monetary indicators such as monetary aggregates, exchange rates, and interest rates can provide valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders in these economies. This study therefore seeks to investigate the nexus between monetary indicators and Bitcoin in selected Sub-Saharan African countries using a Panel ARDL (Autoregressive Distributed Lag) approach. The analysis focuses on understanding the dynamic relationship between key monetary variables, such as monetary aggregates, exchange rates, interest rates, and Bitcoin prices, from 2010 quarter three to 2022 quarter four. The findings reveal several significant relationships between monetary indicators and Bitcoin across the selected Sub-Saharan African countries. In the short run of the Panel Ardl monetary aggregates exhibit a positive relationship with Bitcoin prices, indicating that changes in the money supply may influence the demand for cryptocurrencies. Conversely, both exchange rates and interest rates show a negative relationship with Bitcoin prices in the short run, suggesting that currency depreciation and higher borrowing costs may reduce demand for Bitcoin. In the long run, the relationship between monetary aggregates and Bitcoin remains positive, emphasizing the potential influence of money supply on cryptocurrency markets over time. However, the significance of exchange rates diminishes, indicating a less pronounced impact in the longer term. Interestingly, interest rates continue to exhibit a significant negative relationship with Bitcoin prices in the long run, highlighting the persistent effect of borrowing costs on cryptocurrency demand. These results have important implications for policymakers, investors, and researchers interested in the intersection of monetary policy and cryptocurrency markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. Policymakers may consider the impact of monetary policy decisions on cryptocurrency adoption and market dynamics, while investors can use these insights to inform their investment strategies.

A granular investigation on the stability of money demand

Abstract A large literature has shown money demand functions constructed from simple-sum aggregates are unstable. We revisit the controversy surrounding the instability of money demand by examining cointegrating income-money relationships with the Divisia monetary aggregates for the U.S., and compare them with their simple-sum counterparts. We innovate by conducting a more granular analysis of various monetary assets and their associated user costs. We find characterizing money demand with simple-sum measures only works well in a period preceding 1980. Divisia aggregates, their components, and their user costs provide a more reliable interpretation of money demand. Subsample analysis across 1980 and 2008 suggests the instability of money demand is a matter of measurement rather than a consequence of a structural change in agents’ preference for monetary assets.

Constructing Divisia Monetary Aggregates for the Asian Tigers

This study constructs Divisia monetary aggregates for the “Asian Tigers”—Hong Kong (1999–2024), South Korea (2009–2024), Singapore (1991–2021), and Taiwan (2005–2024)—and assesses whether Divisia monetary aggregates explain nominal GDP better than simple-sum money. Our findings demonstrate that Divisia indices respond more sensitively to economic shocks. For Hong Kong and Taiwan, narrow Divisia money provides the best explanations for fluctuations in nominal GDP. Our results suggest that Divisia monetary aggregates can be beneficial for monetary policy analysis in these countries and underscore the importance of further research into the empirical performance of Divisia monetary aggregates in macroeconomic prediction.

Sectorial economic activity and Divisia monetary aggregates

Abstract This paper assesses the information content and predictive capabilities of Divisia monetary indicators concerning sector-specific economic activities. Although existing evidence strongly supports the informative nature and predictive potential of various Divisia indicators at an aggregate level, studies focusing on Divisia information content for specific industries are notably sparse. Sector-level data provide a more detailed insight into economic and labor market dynamics. By analyzing comprehensive sector-specific data on real GDP, value added, employment, and unemployment rates across thirteen diverse sectors in the United States, this paper investigates the predictive abilities of narrow and broad Divisia money across three categories (original, credit card-augmented, and credit card-augmented inside money). The results show that narrow Divisia money serve as robust predictors of sector-specific economic and labor market indicators, often surpassing the predictive capacity of the conventional Fed funds rate and slightly outperforming broad Divisia measures in relation to these indicators.

Nonseparability of credit card services within Divisia monetary aggregates

Abstract We use the New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) framework and Vector Autoregressive (VAR) to investigate the usefulness and relevancy of monetary services, augmented to include credit card transaction services. We use the new credit-card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregates in the models to further the existing research on their usefulness and relevancy. In this research, we compare three different monetary aggregates within the New Keynesian framework: (1) the aggregation-theoretic “true” monetary aggregate, (2) the credit-card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregate, and (3) the simple sum monetary aggregate. We acquire the following primary results. (1) The credit-card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregate tracks the theoretical (true) monetary aggregate, while simple sum does not. Although this result would be expected from the theory in classical economic models, the result is not an immediate implication of the theory in New Keynesian models and therefore needs empirical confirmation. (2) Under the recursive VAR framework, the credit-card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregate serves as a preferable monetary policy indicator compared to the traditional federal funds rate. (3) On theoretical grounds, we find that the separability condition for existence of a monetary aggregator function could fail, if credit card deferred payment services were excluded from the monetary services block, unless all markets are perfect.

Is money velocity pro-cyclical? The case of India

Monetary targeting served as a useful tool for conducting monetary policy until 1980s, but the instability in the relationship between money and nominal income led to its abandonment by most economies. One way of measuring this relationship is money velocity, defined as the ratio of nominal income to money. The purpose of the present study is to show that if short-run cyclical factors are accounted for, money velocity function becomes stable and thus any change in monetary aggregates will lead to predictable change in nominal income and therefore inflation. In such a scenario, monetary targeting can serve as a useful tool in the conduct of monetary policy. The study utilizes quarterly data from 1996:Q2 to 2020:Q1 and time series methodology to conduct empirical analysis. Findings show that money velocity and all its identified determinants exhibit pro-cyclical behaviour. After accounting for these determinants, money velocity has been found to be stable. The direction of causality runs from money velocity to rate of interest to investment to GDP. Thus, when formulating monetary and fiscal policies, policymakers can monitor the short-term cyclical patterns in money velocity as an indicator of forthcoming expansionary or contractionary conditions in the economy to design effective policies.

How are green stocks and monetary policy related?

We propose and test the hypothesis that green stocks and monetary policies are interdependent. Using time-series data for two large economies (India and Indonesia), that have adopted inflation targeting regimes, we develop a structural vector autoregressive model of monetary policy and green stocks that combines with output. We find that green stock prices fall (rise) in response to inflation with a lagged effect and policy rate shocks for India (Indonesia). Currency depreciation, on the other hand, increases green stock prices for India but has a muted effect for Indonesia. We also discover that, for India, monetary policies hardly respond to green stock price shocks while, for Indonesia, green stock prices do influence the evolution of monetary price variables. Our main contribution is that we decipher the effects of green stocks from aggregate market shocks and show each of these market price shocks is related to the monetary aggregates.

China's monetary policy framework and global commodity prices

This paper examines the effects of China's monetary policy on global commodity prices over the quarterly period 1996:Q1–2021:Q4. Using a Bayesian Structural VAR model, we evaluate the impact of interest rate shocks (as a price rule) and shocks to the monetary aggregate (M2) (as a quantity rule) on those commodity prices. Our main findings are fourfold. First, a positive interest rate shock has a negative and persistent effect on commodity prices, with beverages and metals commodity prices falling the most in response to such shock. Second, a positive shock to the growth rate of M2 has a strong impact on the prices of non-fuel commodities, agricultural raw materials, and metals. Still, the highly volatile food and fuel (energy) commodity prices are less affected. Third, while both the growth rate of M2 and the interest rate seem relevant macroeconomic stabilizers, the quantity instrument appears more effective than the price instrument in explaining commodity prices. Finally, while interest rate hikes are linked with a persistent rise in world uncertainty, monetary expansions lead to a long-lived fall in this variable. All in all, our study provides new evidence about the impact of China's monetary policy on global commodity prices using a rich dataset and an econometric setup that accounts for uncertainty.

An Empirical Analysis of Money Demand and Its Stability in Zambia 1984-2021

The paper was an empirical analysis of the stability of money demand in Zambia between 1984 and 2021. The money demand function tries to explain the factors that influence people’s demand for money in an economy. The determinants included real income, exchange rate, inflation rate and interest rate. Using E-views 9.0, an appropriate model was estimated for statistical analysis. In the analysis of data, unit root tests were done to check the order of integration of the variables. Furthermore, to test for long term equilibrium relationships among variables the Augmented-Dickey Fuller (ADF) was used to test procedure on the residuals. Out of the many ways of testing for normality, this paper chose the Jarque-Bera test to conduct the normality test on the variables. From this study’s results, the bound test showed that there is a long run cointegration relationship among demand for real money balances, real GDP, interest rates, exchange rate and inflation in case of broad money aggregates. In the long run, all the independent variables are significant determinants of money demand which will be positively affected by percentage changes in exchange rates and negatively by percentage changes in gross domestic product, inflation, and interest rate. The study found that for the implementation of monetary policy in any economy to be successful, it relies heavily on the instruments of monetary policy used as well as the structure of the economy. However, for emerging economies such as Zambia, there are special hurdles that may make the implementation of monetary policy less effective in the achievement of the monetary policy goals. From the findings, it is recommended that as the process of modernizing monetary policy frameworks are implemented in addressing emerging economic challenges, there is need to continue with monetary aggregates in monetary policy conduct.

Divisia Monetary Aggregates for India

Abstract In this paper, we are motivated by the fast growing literature that investigates the performance of Divisia monetary aggregates. We construct Divisia monetary aggregates for India using monthly data form January 2001 to March 2020 and present a comprehensive comparison across the Indian Divisia monetary aggregates at four levels of monetary aggregation, M1, M2, M3, and M4. We do so in the context of three classes of empirical models. In particular, we compute correlations between the cyclical components of the Divisia monetary aggregates and the cyclical component of the industrial production index. We test for Granger causality running from the Divisia monetary aggregates to industrial production. We also test for time-varying Granger causality. We find that the levels of the Divisia monetary aggregates Granger cause economic activity in India during normal times, but the causal link broke during and in the aftermath of the extremely unusual circumstances of the Covid-19 crisis.

The Janus model of money demand

AbstractWe derive a new theoretical model of money demand, which reflects backward‐ and forward‐looking preferences in consumption and utility. The former aspect is captured by standard habit formation, and the latter by anticipation of future consumption preferences. By introducing both of these into the Ramsey–Sidrauski framework, we unveil a new highly general model of money demand. We discuss the model in light of the apparent breakdown of money‐demand functions and diminished policy relevance of monetary aggregates.

Do Monetary Aggregates Improve Inflation Forecasting in Switzerland?

This study examines whether or not Swiss monetary aggregates enhance inflation forecasting in Switzerland during the out-of-sample period, December 2008 to November 2019. We use a state-of-the-art multi-recurrent neural network endowed with a sluggish state-based memory to approximate a non-linear auto-regressive moving average model. Conventional monetary aggregates have been shown to lose dynamic information, potentially explaining why many deem traditional measures of the money supply to have minimal economic relevance. Our findings suggest that when conventional monetary aggregates, Divisia money measures, and a short-term interest rate are combined, forecasts of Swiss inflation over the 12, 24 and 36-month forecasting horizons are significantly improved compared to a model that excludes a measure of the money supply.

ANALISIS PENGARUH INSTRUMEN PEMBAYARAN NON-TUNAI (APMK DAN UANG ELEKTRONIK) TERHADAP MONEY MULTIPLIER

The increasing use of non-cash payment instruments in Indonesia, such as Card Payment Instrument (APMK) and electronic money, shows public awareness and confidence in switching from cash. This has an impact on the money multiplier. The money multiplier plays an important role in the formation of money supply and monetary control. The stability of the money multiplier can provide greater opportunities for Bank Indonesia to implement policies effectively in influencing the supply of money in circulation so the ultimate goal of monetary aggregates can be achieved and a conducive atmosphere for the economy is created. This research aims to determine the influence of ATM+Debit card, credit card and electronic money variables on the money multiplier in Indonesia. In connection with this, the author uses the Error Correction Model (ECM) as an analysis method in this research. The research results show that the Card Payment Instrument (APMK) variable through the nominal transactions of ATM+Debit card and credit card and the nominal transactions of electronic money have significant positive effect on the value of the money multiplier in Indonesia in both the short and long term. It means when the nominal variable for ATM+Debit card, credit card, and electronic money transactions increases, the value of the money multiplier will also increase and vice versa. The increasing use of non-cash payment instruments in Indonesia, such as Card Payment Instrument (APMK) and electronic money, shows public awareness and confidence in switching from cash. This has an impact on the money multiplier. The money multiplier plays an important role in the formation of money supply and monetary control. The stability of the money multiplier can provide greater opportunities for Bank Indonesia to implement policies effectively in influencing the supply of money in circulation so the ultimate goal of monetary aggregates can be achieved and a conducive atmosphere for the economy is created. This research aims to determine the influence of ATM+Debit card, credit card and electronic money variables on the money multiplier in Indonesia. In connection with this, the author uses the Error Correction Model (ECM) as an analysis method in this research. The research results show that the Card Payment Instrument (APMK) variable through the nominal transactions of ATM+Debit card and credit card and the nominal transactions of electronic money have significant positive effect on the value of the money multiplier in Indonesia in both the short and long term. It means when the nominal variable for ATM+Debit card, credit card, and electronic money transactions increases, the value of the money multiplier will also increase and vice versa.

The credit card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregates: an analysis based on recurrence plots and visual boundary recurrence plots

In this paper, we compare the dynamics of the growth rates of the original Divisia monetary aggregates, the credit card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregates, and the credit card-augmented Divisia inside monetary aggregates. This analysis is based on the methods of recurrence plots, recurrence quantification analysis, and visual boundary recurrence plots which are phase space methods designed to depict the underlying dynamics of the system under study. We identify the events that affected Divisia money growth and point out the differences among the different Divisia monetary aggregates based on the recurrence and visual boundary recurrence plots. We argue that the broad Divisia monetary aggregates could be used for monetary policy and business cycle analysis as they are exhibiting less fluctuation compared to the narrow Divisia monetary aggregates. They could positively affect policy decisions regarding environmental choices and sustainability. We also point out the changes in the monetary dynamics locating the 2008 global financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Contagion of fear: Panics, money, and the Great Depression

Despite its centrality in debates about the causes and consequences of the Great Depression, banking panics’ impact on the money supply during this period remains a subject of ongoing debate. Before 1936, the Fed's decentralized structure meant that panics impacted money creation regionally while monetary impulses impacted bank stability nationally. We use this structure and newly digitized data to construct monetary aggregates at the Federal Reserve district level and apply a novel identification strategy that allows us to isolate the panics’ impact on monetary aggregates. We find that panics reduced the money supply by 27%, or in other words, that panics caused most of the decline in the money supply from June 1929 to December 1932.

The credit-augmented Divisia aggregates and the monetary business cycle

Abstract We follow Belongia and Ireland (2021) and investigate the role that the Center for Financial Stability credit card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregates could play in monetary policy and business cycle analysis. We use Bayesian methods to estimate a structural VAR under priors that reflect Keynesian channels of monetary transmission, but produce posterior distributions for the structural parameters consistent with classical channels. We also find that valuable information is contained in the credit-augmented Divisia monetary aggregates and that they perform even better than the conventional Divisia aggregates, in terms of highlighting the role of the money supply in aggregate demand.

The simple macroeconometrics of the quantity theory and the welfare cost of inflation

The quantity theory of money hypothesizes that the price level is determined through the equilibration of money supply and demand. Predicated on this causal structure, a single-equation error correction model decomposes from a larger vector autoregressive system so as to make available bounds tests for a levels relationship that are robust to the univariate integration properties of the variables. This model is estimated using three monetary aggregates and two money demand specifications, for U.S. and U.K. annual data over the past century and quarterly post-WWII data. The classic homogeneity propositions of the quantity theory are testable, and are found to be most compatible with U.S. annual M2 using log-log money demand with structural change permitted. Nevertheless, the resulting welfare costs are similar to those yielded by the U.K. annual data, being less than one percent of GDP at interest rates experienced during the past century.

Have credit card services become important to monetary aggregation? An application of sign restricted Bayesian VAR

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to estimate the relationship among a primary set of economic variables, including two types of monetary aggregates: simple sum M2 and credit-card-augmented Divisia inside money services. The importance of that comparison has grown as the use of credit cards in purchase transactions has expanded. The data period includes the Great Recession, which was heavily associated with finance and thereby especially relevant to this study. The basic methodology in this paper is VAR-Sign Restrictions estimation. VAR is a well-known method to analyze inter-dependency among economic variables. By applying VAR-Sign Restrictions, we analyze how economic variables behave, positively or negatively, toward differently defined shocks. Imposing signs on the direction of economic variable responses to shocks is based on economic prior beliefs, using Bayesian estimation. Our results provide deeper insights into the relative merits of the two types of monetary aggregates as indicators.