Monetary economics explained

Monetary economics is the branch of economics that studies the different theories of money: it provides a framework for analyzing money and considers its functions (such as medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account), and it considers how money can gain acceptance purely because of its convenience as a public good. The discipline has historically prefigured, and remains integrally linked to, macroeconomics. This branch also examines the effects of monetary systems, including regulation of money and associated financial institutions and international aspects.

Modern analysis has attempted to provide microfoundations for the demand for money and to distinguish valid nominal and real monetary relationships for micro or macro uses, including their influence on the aggregate demand for output.[1] Its methods include deriving and testing the implications of money as a substitute for other assets[2] and as based on explicit frictions.[3]

History

The foundational concept of any modern theory of money is the understanding that the value of fiat money depends upon exchange and not weight (compare with the Arrow–Debreu model).[4]

Research areas

Traditionally, research areas in monetary economics have included:

History

See also: History of economic thought and History of money.

Islamic Golden Age

At around the same time in the medieval Islamic world, a vigorous monetary economy was created during the 7th–12th centuries on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high-value currency (the dinar). Innovations introduced by Muslim economists, traders and merchants include the earliest uses of credit,[14] cheques, promissory notes,[15] savings accounts, transactional accounts, loaning, trusts, exchange rates, the transfer of credit and debt,[16] and banking institutions for loans and deposits.

1500s to 1700s

In the Indian subcontinent, Sher Shah Suri (1540–1545), introduced a silver coin called a rupiya, weighing 178 grams. Its use was continued by the Mughal rulers.[17] The history of the rupee traces back to Ancient India circa 3rd century BC. Ancient India was one of the earliest issuers of coins in the world,[18] along with the Lydian staters, several other Middle Eastern coinages and the Chinese wen.The term is from rūpya, a Sanskrit term for silver coin,[19] from Sanskrit rūpa, beautiful form.[20]

The imperial taka was officially introduced by the monetary reforms of Muhammad bin Tughluq, the emperor of the Delhi Sultanate, in 1329. It was modeled as representative money, a concept pioneered as paper money by the Mongols in China and Persia. The tanka was minted in copper and brass. Its value was exchanged with gold and silver reserves in the imperial treasury. The currency was introduced due to the shortage of metals.[21]

Both the Kabuli rupee and the Kandahari rupee were used as currency in Afghanistan prior to 1891, when they were standardized as the Afghan rupee. The Afghan rupee, which was subdivided into 60 paisas, was replaced by the Afghan afghani in 1925.

Until the middle of the 20th century, Tibet's official currency was also known as the Tibetan rupee.[22]

Serious interest in the concepts behind money occurred during the dramatic period of inflation in the late 15th to early 17th centuries known as the Price Revolution, during which the value of gold fell precipitously, sometimes fluctuating wildly, because of the importation of gold from the New World, primarily by Spain.

At the end of this period, the first modern texts on monetary economics were beginning to appear.

During the eighteenth century, the concept of banknotes became more common in Europe. David Hume referred to it as "this new invention of paper".[23]

In 1705, John Law in Scotland published Money and Trade Considered, which examined the failure of metal-based money during the previous hundred and fifty years. He proposed replacing that system with a land bank system of paper money based on the value of real estate. He succeeded in getting this proposal implemented. However, his bank failed due to a bubble of speculation collapsing into extreme inflation; perhaps because he failed to take the lessons of the Spanish Price Revolution seriously.

In 1720, Isaac Gervaise wrote The System or Theory of the Trade of the World. He criticised mercantilism and state-supported credit for the inflation problems of his era.

Della Moneta, was published by Ferdinando Galiani in 1751, and is arguably the first modern text on economic theory. It was printed twenty-five years before Adam Smith's more famous book, The Wealth of Nations, which touched on some of the same topics. Della Moneta covered many modern monetary concepts, including the value, origin, and regulation of money. It carefully examined the possible causes for money's value to fluctuate.

The year following, 1752, Of the Balance of Trade was published by Hume. He argued that one need not worry about the import or export of goods creating a surplus or shortage of either money or goods because an excess or shortage of money will always increase or decrease demand until equilibrium is reached. In modern economic terms, this is as equilibration through the price–specie flow mechanism.

See also

References

Friedman, Benjamin M., and Frank H. Hahn, ed., 1990. v. 1 links for description & contents and chapter-outline previews

_____, 1990. v. 2 links for description & contents and chapter-outline previews.

Friedman, Benjamin, and Michael Woodford, 2010. v. 3A & 3B links for description & and chapter abstract & TOC.

External links

(JEL: E4) Money and Interest Rates

(JEL: E5) Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

Presentation of Money, credit and finance an slideshow

What is money? A slideshow https://www.slideshare.net/MitchGreen/lesson-1-what-is-money#btnNext

Notes and References

  1. Robert Clower, 1967. "A Reconsideration of the Microfoundations of Monetary Theory," Western Economic Journal, 6(1), pp. 1-8.
       • _____, 1987. Money and Markets. Cambridge. Description and chapter-preview.
       • David Laidler, 1988. "Taking Money Seriously," Canadian Journal of Economics, 21(4), pp. 687–713.
       • _____, 1993. The Demand for Money: Theories, Evidence, and Problems, 4th ed. Description.
       • _____, 1997. "Notes on the Microfoundations of Monetary Economics," Economic Journal, 107(443), pp. 1213–1223.
       • Don Patinkin, 1965, 2nd ed. Money, Interest and Prices: An Integration of Monetary and Value Theory. New York: Harper and Row. Introduction to 1990 MIT edition (PDF), and 1991 evaluation by Stanley Fischer.
       • Michael Woodford, 2003. Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy, Princeton University Press. Description and Table of Contents. .
  2. • James Tobin, 1969. "A General Equilibrium Approach To Monetary Theory," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 1(1), pp. 15-29.
       • _____ with Stephen S. Golub, 1998. Money, Credit, and Capital. Irwin/McGraw-Hill. TOC.
       • Stephen M. Goldfeld and Daniel E. Sichel, 1990. "The Demand for Money," in Handbook of Monetary Economics, v. 1, pp. 299-356. Outline. Elsevier.
       • Subramanian S. Sriram, 2001. "A Survey of Recent Empirical Money Demand Studies," IMF Staff Papers, 47(3). International Monetary Fund. pp. 334-65.
  3. • Robert M. Townsend, 1980. "Models of Money with Spatially Separated Agents," in John H. Kareken and Neil Wallace, ed., Models of Monetary Economies pp. 265-303. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
       • Neil Wallace, 2001. "Whither Monetary Economics?," International Economic Review, 42(4), pp. p. 847 -869.
       • Ricardo Lagos and Randall Wright, 2005. "A Unified Framework for Monetary Theory and Policy Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, 113(3
  4. Book: Sargent . Thomas J. . The Princeton Economic History of the Western World . Princeton University Press . 2001 . 69 . ...the competitive equilibrium model of Arrow (1951) and Debreu (1954) has no role for fiat money, an asset that is valued only because it facilitates exchange. In the Arrow–Debreu model, all exchanges occur through a frictionless credit system. Credit works so well that no coins or notes are ever required for exchange. The Arrow–Debreu model would make coins worth the metal they contain..
  5. Milton Friedman, [1987] 2008. "quantity theory of money." The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. 2nd Edition. Abstract. Arrow-page searchable preview at John Eatwell et al., 1989, Money: The New Palgrave, pp. 1-40.
  6. • Bennett T. McCallum, 2008. "Monetarism," Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, 2nd ed.
       • Phillip Cagan, 1987. "monetarism," , v. 3, pp. 492–97. Table of Contents. Reprinted in John Eatwell et al., 1989), Money: The New Palgrave, pp. 195 -205.
       • Jerome L. Stein, ed., 1976. Monetarism. Elsevier.
  7. Benjamin M. Friedman, 2008. "money supply," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. v. 5, pp. 745-51. Abstract.
       • Clark Warburton, 1966. Depression, Inflation, and Monetary Policy: Selected Papers, 1945-1953. Johns Hopkins Press. Evaluation in Anna J. Schwartz, Money in Historical Perspective, 1987.
       • Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz, 1963. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton. Page-searchable links to chapters on 1929-41 and 1948-60.
       • James Tobin, 1970. "Money and Income: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc?" Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(2), pp. 301-317.
       • Christopher A. Sims, 1972. "Money, Income, and Causality," American Economic Review, 62(4), pp. 540-552.
       • _____, 1980. "Comparison of Interwar and Postwar Business Cycles: Monetarism Reconsidered,"American Economic Review, 70(2), pp. 250 -257.
       • _____, 2011. "Statistical Modeling of Monetary Policy and its Effects", Nobel Prize lecture.
       • John P. Judd and John L. Scadding, 1982. "The Search for a Stable Money Demand Function: A Survey of the Post-1973 Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, 20(3), pp. 993 -1023.
       • Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer, 1989. "Does Monetary Policy Matter? A New Test in the Spirit of Friedman and Schwartz", NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, 4, downloadable at ch. 3 and at Journal of Monetary Economics, 1994, 34(1), pp. 75-88. Abstract.
       • Dennis L. Hoffman, Robert H. Rasche, and Margie A. Tieslau, 1995. "The Stability of Long-run Money Demand in Five Industrial Countries," Journal of Monetary Economics, 35(2), pp. 317-339 Abstract.
       • Robert G. King and Charles I. Plosser, 1984. "Money, Credit, and Prices in a Real Business Cycle," American Economic Review, 74(3), pp. 363-380. Reprinted in Finn E. Kydland, ed., 1995. Business Cycle Theory, pp. 136-55.
       • Tack Yun, 1996. "Nominal Price Rigidity, Money Supply Endogeneity, and Business Cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, 37, pp. 345–70. Abstract.
       • Arturo Estrella and Frederic S. Mishkin, 1997. "Is There a Role for Monetary Aggregates in the Conduct of Monetary Policy?" Journal of Monetary Economics, 40(2), pp. 279-304. Abstract.
  8. • Robert Mundell, 1963. "Inflation and Real Interest," Journal of Political Economy, 71(3), pp. pp. 280-283. Briefer description.
       • Burton G. Malkiel, [1987] 2008. "term structure of interest rates," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
       • Michael W. Brandt and David A. Chapman, 2008. "affine term structure models," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
       • William Poole, 2005. "Understanding the Term Structure of Interest Rates," speech, New York, Money Marketeers, The Down Town Association.
       • Bennett T. McCallum, 2005. "Monetary Policy and the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Economic Quarterly, 91(4), pp. 1-21. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
       • Kenneth N. Kuttner, 2001. "Monetary Policy Surprises and Interest Rates: Evidence from the Fed Funds Futures Market," Journal of Monetary Economics, 47(3), pp. 523-544. Abstract.
       • 2004. Interest Rates and Monetary Policy. Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Summary and session links.
  9. Michael D. Bordo, 2008. "monetary policy, history of," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract and pre-publication copy.
       • John Kenneth Galbraith, 1975. Money: Whence it Came, Where it Went, Houghton Mifflin. } Extracts and review extracts.http://ann.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/424/1/163https://www.jstor.org/pss/1992011
       • Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2008. "liquidity trap," .The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
       • Athanasios Orphanides, 2004. "Monetary Policy in Deflation: The Liquidity Trap in History and Practice," North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 15(1), pp. 101-124. Abstract.
       • Ben S. Bernanke, 2000, "Japanese Monetary Policy: A Case of Self-Induced Paralysis?" ch. 7, pp. 149-66 in Japan's Financial Crisis and Its Parallels to US Experience, Adam S. Posen and Ryoichi Mikitani, ed.
       • _____, 2003. "Some Thoughts on Monetary Policy in Japan," May 31, (speech) Federal Reserve Board.
       • _____, 2005. Essays on the Great Depression, ch. 1-4. Princeton. Description, TOC, and ch. 1, " The Macroeconomics of the Great Depression," preview.
       • Satyajit Chatterjee and P. Dean Corbae, 2008. "Great Depression, monetary and financial forces in," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
       • G.J. Santoni, 1987. "The Great Bull Markets 1924-29 and 1982-87: Speculative Bubbles or Economic Fundamentals?" Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, November, pp. 16-30.
       • Richard C. Koo, 2008. The Holy Grail of Macro Economics: Lessons From Japan's Great Recession, Wiley. Description and Review.
       • Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton University Press. Description, ch. 1 ("Varieties of Crises and their Dates," pp. 3-20), and chapter-preview links.
       • Kevin H. O'Rourke and Barry Eichengreen, 2009. "A Tale of Two Depressions," pp. 1-8. VoxEU.org.
       • John Quiggin, 2010. Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us, ch. 2-3 & 5. Princeton U.P. Description, TOC, and Introduction .
       • Christopher L. Foote and Paul S. Willen, 2011. "subprime mortgage crisis, the," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Online Edition. Abstract.
       • Thomas J. Sargent, 2011. "United States Then, Europe Now," Nobel lecture, sect.7, Lessons for Now.
       • Roger Lowenstein, 2012. "The Villain," (front-cover title: "The Hero"), The Atlantic, 309(2), April, pp. 48-60. [Bernanke, other economists, and politicians on U.S. monetary policy since 2006.]
  10. • Don Patinkin, 1987. "neutrality of money," , v. 3, pp. 639–44. Reprinted in John Eatwell et al., 1989, Money: The New Palgrave, pp. 273- 287.
       • Irving Fisher, 1928. The Money Illusion. Chapter-preview links.
       • William H. Branson and Alvin K. Klevorick, 1969. "Money Illusion and the Aggregate Consumption Function," American Economic Review, 59(5), pp. 832-849.
       • Eldar Shafir, Peter Diamond, and Amos Tversky, 1997. "Money Illusion," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(2), pp. 341 -374.
       • Bruno, Michael, and William Easterly, 1998. "Inflation Crises and Long-run Growth," Journal of Monetary Economics 41(1), pp. 3–26. Abstract.
  11. • Milton Friedman, [1987] 2008. "quantity theory of money." sect. 4, The Theory of Rational Expectations, The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. 2nd Edition. Earlier at John Eatwell et al., 1989), Money: The New Palgrave, pp. 26 -28.
       • From The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2008. 2nd Edition:
             "rational expectations" by Thomas J. Sargent. Abstract.
             "inflation expectations" by Bennett T. McCallum. Abstract.
             "inflation targeting" by Lars E.O. Svensson. Abstract and pre-publication copy.
       • Thomas J. Sargent and Neil Wallace, 1975. "'Rational' Expectations, the Optimal Monetary Instrument, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule," Journal of Political Economy, 83(2), pp. 241-254 .
       • Thomas J. Sargent, 1976. "A Classical Macroeconometric Model for the United States," Journal of Political Economy, 84(2), pp. 207 -238. Reprinted in Lucas and Sargent, ed., 1981, Rational Expectations and Econometric Practice, University of Minnesota Press, 1981. v. 2, pp. 521-51.
       • Christopher A. Sims, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality", Econometrica, 48(1), pp. 1-48 .
       • Thomas J. Sargent, 1982. "The Ends of Four Big Inflations," in Robert E. Hall, ed., Inflation: Causes and Effects, ch. 2, pp. 41-98. Chicago.
       • Steven M. Sheffrin, 1996, 2nd Ed. Rational Expectations. Cambridge. Description and preview.
       • Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the Neutrality of Money," Journal of Economic Theory, 4(2), pp. 103-124.
       • _____, 1976. "Econometric Policy Evaluation: A Critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, 1(1), pp. 19–46.
       • _____, 1980. "Two Illustrations of the Quantity Theory of Money," American Economic Review, 70(5), pp. 1005-1014.
       • _____, 1995. "Monetary Neutrality," Nobel Prize Lecture.
       • Stanley Fischer, 1977. "Long-Term Contracts, Rational Expectations, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule," Journal of Political Economy, 85(1), pp. 191-205.
       • Robert J. Barro, 1978. "Unanticipated Money, Output, and the Price Level in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, 86(4), pp. 549 -580, reprinted in Lucas and Sargent, ed., 1981, Rational Expectations and Econometric Practice, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 585-616.
       • Clifford L. F. Attfield and Nigel W. Duck, 1983. "The Influence of Unanticipated Money Growth on Real Output: Some Cross-Country Estimates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 15(4), pp. 442 -454.
       • Olivier J. Blanchard, 1990. "Why Does Money Affect Output? A Survey," in B. M. Friedman and F. H. Hahn, ed., 1990, Handbook of Monetary Economics, v. 2, ch. 15, pp. 779-835.
  12. • From 2008, The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition:
           "monetary business cycles (imperfect information)" by Christian Hellwig. Abstract.
          "bubbles" by Markus K. Brunnermeier.
          "speculative bubbles" by Miguel A. Iraola and Manuel S. Santos. Abstract.
           "information cascades," by Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch. Abstract.
       • Alex Cukierman and Allan H. Meltzer, 1986. "A Theory of Ambiguity, Credibility, and Inflation under Discretion and Asymmetric Information," Econometrica, 54(5), pp. 1099-1128.
       • Matthew B. Canzoneri, 1985. "Monetary Policy Games and the Role of Private Information," American Economic Review, 75(5), pp. 1056 -1070.
       • Frederic S. Mishkin, 1991. "Asymmetric Information and Financial Crises: A Historical Perspective," in R. Glenn Hubbard, ed., Financial Markets and Financial Crises (description), Chicago, pp.69-108
       • Joseph E. Stiglitz and Andrew M. Weiss, 1992. "Asymmetric Information in Credit Markets: Implications for Macro-Economics," Oxford Economic Papers, 44(4), pp. 694-724.
       • Pradeep Dubey, John Geanakoplos, and Martin Shubik, 1987. "A Critique of Rational Expectations Equilibrium," Journal of Mathematical Economics, 16(2), pp. 105-137 .
       • Joseph Stiglitz and Bruce Greenwald, 2003. Towards a New Paradigm in Monetary Economics. Cambridge. Arrow page-searchable Description and Table of Contents chapter-preview links.
       • Franklin Allen and Douglas Gale, 2000 "Financial Contagion," Journal of Political Economy, 108(1), pp.1-33.
       • Laura E. Kodres and Matthew Pritsker, 2002. "A Rational Expectations Model of Financial Contagion," Journal of Finance, 57(2), pp. 769-799.
  13. • Paul Povel, Rajdeep Singh, and Andrew Winton, 2007. "Booms, Busts, and Fraud," Review of Financial Studies, 20(4), pp. 1219-1254.
       • William K. Black, 2005. The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. Description and preview.
       • _____, 2005. "'Control Frauds' as Financial Super-predators: How 'Pathogens' Make Financial Markets Inefficient," Journal of Socio-Economics, 34(6), pp. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535705000417734-755. Abstract.
       • _____, 2009. "Those Who Forget the Regulatory Successes of the Past are Condemned to Failure," Economic & Political Weekly, 44(13), pp. 80-86,. Abstract.
  14. Banaji . Jairus . 2007 . Islam, the Mediterranean and the Rise of Capitalism . Historical Materialism . 15 . 1 . 47–74 . 1465-4466 . 10.1163/156920607X171591 . 440360743 . August 28, 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090523015524/http://www.scribd.com/doc/14246569/Banaji-Jairus-Islam-The-Mediterranean-and-the-Rise-of-Capitalism . May 23, 2009 . dead .
  15. Book: Lopez . Robert Sabatino . Roberto Sabatino Lopez . Raymond . Irving Woodworth . Constable . Olivia Remie . Medieval trade in the Mediterranean world: Illustrative documents . Records of Western civilization.; Records of civilization, sources and studies, no. 52 . 2001 . 1955 . . New York . 978-0-231-12357-0 . 466877309 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120309144011/http://cup.columbia.edu/bookpreview/978-0-231-12356-3/ . March 9, 2012 .
  16. Labib . Subhi Y. . March 1969 . Capitalism in Medieval Islam . The Journal of Economic History . 29 . 1 . 79–86 . 0022-0507 . 478662641 . 2115499 . 10.1017/S0022050700097837 . 153962294 .
  17. Web site: Mughal Coinage . https://web.archive.org/web/20021005231609/http://www.rbi.org.in/currency/museum/c-mogul.html . dead . 2002-10-05 . Sher Shah issued a coin of silver which was termed the Rupiya. This weighed 178 grains and was the precursor of the modern rupee. It remained largely unchanged till the early 20th Century .
  18. Book: Subodh Kapoor . The Indian encyclopaedia: biographical, historical, religious ..., Volume 6 . Cosmo Publications . January 2002 . 1599 . 81-7755-257-0 .
  19. Web site: A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages. 26 August 2010. Turner. Sir Ralph Lilley. Ralph Lilley Turner. 1985. London: Oxford University Press, 1962–1966.. Includes three supplements, published 1969–1985.. Digital South Asia Library, a project of the Center for Research Libraries and the University of Chicago. rū'pya 10805 rū'pya 'beautiful, bearing a stamp'; 'silver'. 28 August 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20100828231731/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/soas/index.html. live.
  20. Web site: A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages. 26 August 2010. Turner. Sir Ralph Lilley. Ralph Lilley Turner. 1985. London: Oxford University Press, 1962–1966.. Includes three supplements, published 1969–1985.. Digital South Asia Library, a project of the Center for Research Libraries and the University of Chicago. rūpa 10803 'form, beauty'. 28 August 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20100828231731/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/soas/index.html. live.
  21. Web site: History revisited: How Tughlaq's currency change led to chaos in 14th century India. Shoaib Daniyal. scroll.in. 2017-02-14. 2017-02-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20170215114508/https://scroll.in/article/821406/demonetisation-lessons-how-tughlaqs-unplanned-currency-change-in-14th-century-india-led-to-chaos. live.
  22. Trailing the giant panda . Theodore Roosevelt . Kermit Roosevelt . Nature . 1929 . 124 . 3138 . 944 . Scribner . 10.1038/124944b0 . 1929Natur.124R.944. . 4086078 . ... The currency in general use was what was known at the Tibetan rupee ....
  23. Web site: History of Monetary and Credit Theory . 2017-02-26 . 2023-01-16 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230116150656/https://cdn.mises.org/History . live .