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The Chicago Plan Revisited
Abstract
At the height of the Great Depression a number of leading U.S. economists advanced a proposal for monetary reform that became known as the Chicago Plan. It envisaged the separation of the monetary and credit functions of the banking system, by requiring 100% reserve backing for deposits. Irving Fisher (1936) claimed the following advantages for this plan: (1) Much better control of a major source of business cycle fluctuations, sudden increases and contractions of bank credit and of the supply of bank-created money. (2) Complete elimination of bank runs. (3) Dramatic reduction of the (net) public debt. (4) Dramatic reduction of private debt, as money creation no longer requires simultaneous debt creation. We study these claims by embedding a comprehensive and carefully calibrated model of the banking system in a DSGE model of the U.S. economy. We find support for all four of Fisher's claims. Furthermore, output gains approach 10 percent, and steady state inflation can drop to zero without posing problems for the conduct of monetary policy.
... Rationed markets are determined by the shortside principle: whichever quantity of demand or supply is smaller determines the outcome (as it is the smallest common denominator for trans actions to take place; see Muellbauer & Portes, 1978).7 Disequilibrium and rationed markets create circumstances that immediately bring econom ics and politics together: the short side of any rationed market has allocation powers.8 In other 5 This paper does not consider the third justification that Ock ham recognized. According to him "nothing ought to be pos ited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture" (William of Ockham. ...
... where ApR stands for the differenced logarithm of the GDP deflator, Ay for the differenced loga rithm of real output, and AcR for the differenced logarithm of nominal credit creation used for GDP transactions. Shortly, equation (5) says that for nominal GDP (i.e., the value of transactions that make up nominal GDP) to grow, there must be an increase in credit creation used to fund this growth. ...
... Benes and Kumhof (2012), in their influential IMF working paper write: "bank liabilities are money that can be created and destroyed at a moment's notice. The critical importance of this fact appears to have been lost in much of the modern macroeconomics literature on banking, with the exception of Werner (2005)". ...
In this paper, an inductive research methodology and the principle of parsimony are applied to reconsider a central issue in economics and macro-finance, namely the determinants of economic growth and the role of the financial sector. A simple framework is derived, characterised by information imperfections and the absence of market clearing. The literature on rationing has identified the need to consider differing rationing regimes but has not included a banking sector. Such a set-up is presented in this paper, which identifies the link between credit and economic growth under differing rationing regimes, with varying consequences for inflation. The familiar case of money creation resulting in inflation features as a special case within the general framework. Others are the possibility of asset price bubbles and collapses, non-inflationary growth despite full employment, and instability in banking systems. The model is consistent with empirical evidence that has been difficult to reconcile with conventional equilibrium models. It is found that within this simple rationing framework, banks, left to their own devices, do not necessarily deliver stable, non-inflationary growth, and there is no reason to expect their behaviour to optimise social welfare. Some implications for research and policy are discussed.
... 7 Fig. 6.2 Structure of debt in a sovereign money system part II 6 For example Benes and Kumhof (2013). See Van Dixhoorn (2013); Sustainable Finance Lab (2015); Dommerholt and Van Tilburg (2016). ...
... 16 See Box 1.3 for a discussion of whether public money is debt. 17 Benes and Kumhof (2013); Dyson et al. (2016); Sustainable Finance Lab (2015); Wortmann (2017). elsewhere. ...
... 20 Visser (2015). 21 Benes and Kumhof (2013). supply will not imply an absolute ceiling on credit. ...
This chapter considers the advantages and disadvantages of the sovereign money system. It is structured following the four goals of any well-functioning financial monetary system that we identified in Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-70250-2_4 : its contribution to the economy; stability; fairness in the distribution of costs, benefits and risks; and legitimacy. We also address issues related to the international dimension, the transition, and system dynamics and innovation.
... The featured idea is that commercial banks are divided into deposit keeping institutions and credit institutions, so that banks first assume the role of a financial intermediary that collects money and then makes funds available for lending. Benes and Kumhof (2012) revisited the Chicago Plan and tested and fully validated Fisher's (1936) claims, so that the plan could significantly reduce business cycle volatility, eliminate bank runs, and result in an instantaneous and large reduction in the debt levels of both the government and private sector. Benes and Kumhof (2012) concluded that with the plan, monetarism would become feasible because the government could control the money supply and steady-state inflation would fall to zero in an environment without liquidity traps. ...
... Benes and Kumhof (2012) revisited the Chicago Plan and tested and fully validated Fisher's (1936) claims, so that the plan could significantly reduce business cycle volatility, eliminate bank runs, and result in an instantaneous and large reduction in the debt levels of both the government and private sector. Benes and Kumhof (2012) concluded that with the plan, monetarism would become feasible because the government could control the money supply and steady-state inflation would fall to zero in an environment without liquidity traps. This finding was important for those who argue that a money supply monopoly will lead to high inflation. ...
... The study of Benes and Kumhof (2012) was the first to build a DSGE model to test the claims made by the Chicago Plan. However, the lack of historical data for the full reserve system hindered the development of new empirical studies in this field. ...
Fractional reserve banking is a system in which banks extend loans by creating credit/deposit money, and which can be considered the basis of modern financial architecture. Nevertheless, it has been criticised because of its inherently weak and fragile structure in terms of financial and economic stability. As a theoretical solution, full reserve banking has been supported in academic circles, with many technical variations. However, Islamic economics can help to maintain financial and economic stability with its original institution of waqf. Besides performing social functions, waqf also undertakes financial intermediary functions and preserved financial stability in the period of the Ottoman Empire. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of fractional reserve banking on economic stability and to make a comparison with full reserve banking to observe its potential as an alternative solution. The study also examines the efficiency of the Islamic social and economic institution of waqf in maintaining economic stability in both fractional and full reserve systems. The results demonstrate that full reserve banking is a promising approach to maintaining economic stability and that waqf enhances economic stability in both banking systems.
... With regard to point 1, our findings are that policy makers and central bank representatives did not take into account the difference between central bank issued base money and bank money, just as is seen in many more present-day discussions on money and credit (c.f. Benes andKumhof, 2012 Dowd, 1992;Positive Money 2021;Selgin, 1988;Selgin and White, 1994). Because of this confusion it was argued that the possibility for the ULBs to issue notes was a source of financial and economic instability. ...
... This line of argument that money (and credit) issued by the central bank and money (and credit) issued by commercial banks is the same goes hand in hand with more recent arguments to deprive banks of their possibility to create credit and thus to create money, such as in the Chicago plan revisited (Benes and Kumhof, 2012) and in 'Positive Money' (2021). But all these oppositions against banks' possibility to create credit and thus money fail to recognize the different monetary hierarchies, such as the different roles of bank money and base money in the economy (c.f. ...
A number of central banks have started to investigate the possibility of issuing so-called Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). The aim may be to compete with cryptocurrencies of different kinds but also to replace digital commercial bank money with central bank issued digital money, i.e. replacing bank money with central bank-issued basemoney. In this paper we study a similar experiment when the Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, in 1903 replaced private banknotes with their own notes. The result of this policy was a massive increase in commercial bank credit due to the increase in base money, spurring the ongoing boom even further. A boom that worsened the 1907 crisis. The result is thus questioning the notion that increased monetary issuance by a monetary authority to replace other financial assets as private money or cryptoassets should lead to increased financial stability – as, in fact, it led to the opposite.
... The critique of the above-mentioned fractional reserve system dates back to Fischer (1936) and Friedman (1960). It has recently been revived in the mainstream literature through an influential International Monetary Fund working paper by Benes and Kumhof (2012). The authors show that the ability of commercial banks to make money out of thin air ("ex-nihilo"), with almost no limits, contributes to economic instability and asset bubbles. ...
... In terms of specific policy proposals, Benes and Kumhof (2012) argue, in line with Fisher (1936), for a return to 100% reserve banking. The same is proposed, albeit through a different avenue, via Kotlikoff's (2010) Limited Purpose Banking and the Icelandic monetary reform proposal (see Moosa, 2018). ...
The paper reviews the literature and data on the role of finance in socioeconomic development. The evidence suggests that a well‐developed financial system can certainly enhance people's prosperity, but an excessively large and poorly regulated financial system can do more harm than good. We start by making the important distinction between traditional finance (retail banking, insurance, etc.) and modern finance (financial “innovation” and asset trading). We then document that the financialization trend of the past four decades has largely transformed modern finance from “hero” into “villain.” We discuss the driving forces behind this, as well as some policy reform proposals that could in principle make modern finance a hero once again.
... These two events ignited a conversation about the technicalities of money creation that went beyond the elite circles of economic experts to which it had thus far been constrained. The insights that money was created by private banks following a profit-motive, that such private banks' monies were made homogeneous and legitimate by a State accepting them in payment of taxes, and that money was thus in practice created "out of thin air, " gradually extended among activists and scholars (Ryan-Collins et al., 2011;Benes and Kumhof, 2012;Werner, 2014;Kumhof and Jakab, 2016), and were eventually confirmed by key actors in the governance of today's monetary system such as the Bank of England (McLeay et al., 2014) or the IMF (Gross and Siebenbrunner, 2019). "The Great Monetary Settlement, " as Martin (2014) frames the alliance between profitseeking bankers and stability-seeking rulers first implemented through the creation of the Bank of England, set the stage for the growth of monetary society and the progress of capitalism (Ingham, 2008;Desan, 2014;Martin, 2014). ...
... That is, access to credit (or new money) is granted to those that are already creditworthy. Bolstering economic swings because bankers grant credit when they are optimistic about the economy and constrain debt creation when less optimistic; a procyclical behavior that, among others, results in regular financial crisis and systemic instability (Benes and Kumhof, 2012;Gross and Siebenbrunner, 2019). ...
The financial crisis of 2008 resulted, among other, on a popular awareness that the monetary system was not working for the interest of the many. The blockchain technology that was launched soon after offered monetary activists and entrepreneurs a tool to re-imagine, reclaim and reorganize money along a vague ideal of a commons paradigm. A wave of monetary experimentation ensued that took a most concrete form in two entrepreneurial spaces: crypto-currencies with global ambitions and local currencies based on communal democracy. Seemingly distinct on the outset, both strands share a determination to develop a monetary system that serves the many. This has led participants on both sides to reach out toward each other. The article looks at one such attempt: the Sarafu community crypto-currencies in Kenya. These currencies are embedding the creation of money in traditional community savings groups. Using Eleanor Ostrom's framework and building on interview and ethnographic material, the article identifies the economic logic of mutualization proper of the savings groups as one that transforms private assets (one's savings) into a financial commons for the group. To build on this logic, the Sarafu model in-the-making is embedding the production and governance of the new community cryptocurrencies in these saving groups. In that doing, Sarafu has the potential to advance a new architecture of money. However, findings suggest that the standardization and automation of the new monetary rules through smart contracts impose neoliberal ideas that slipped into the code, risking the erosion of the very communal decision-making processes that made savings groups interesting anchors of a money commons in the first place.
... These assumptions are based on the following works: [1][2][3][24][25][26]. The work of Richard Vague is worth mentioning because he takes an in-depth look at all endogenous-economic crises since 1844. ...
... Most recently, economists Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof [26] revisited one of the previous proposals, the Chicago Plan, which is shown in the second column of Table 3. These authors see four major advantages in the proposal: ending recurrent economic cycles, a safer banking system, a reduction in debt dependence and a more effective monetary policy. ...
In this paper we set out a three-pillar monetary-financial framework to (i) analyze, categorize and compare past, current and emerging means of payment; to (ii) capture their creation and destruction processes through sectoral balance sheet dynamics; and to (iii) identify the inherent risks to the current monetary-financial system, also known as the fractional reserve banking system. These risks, which stem from sudden shifts in money demand and supply, are as follows: (I) risk of a cashless society; (II) risk of structural bank disintermediation; (III) risk of systemic bank runs; (IV) risk of currency substitution; and (V) risk of economic and financial bubbles. This framework will guide the assessment of the central bank digital currencies (CBDC), which are considered as the next step in monetary evolution. We will analyze two large groups of CBDC proposals: (i) proposals aimed at complementing cash and bank deposits; and (ii) proposals aimed at replacing all bank deposits with CBDCs. We find that once CBDCs are issued in both sets of proposals, there is always a trade-off between low levels of (I), (IV), (V), risks and high levels of (II) risk. This trade-off could also be defined as the CBDC dilemma, which states that in most CBDC proposals it is impossible to have both of the following at the same time: (1) low levels of (I), (IV) and (V) risks; and (2) low levels of (II) risk. Finally, we suggest that further research on CBDCs should focus on the second group of proposals on a phase-in basis in order to also mitigate the structural bank disintermediation risk and hence to overcome the CBDC dilemma.
... What actually happens in a modern banking system is quite different, as pointed out by academic critics (Huber, 2014;Keen, 2014;Benes & Kumhof, 2012;Werner, 2005Werner, , 2014aBjerg, 2014), central bank governors (King, 2012, p. 3;Jensen, in Danmarks Nationalbank, 2014, p. 1), one top government regulator (Turner, 2013, p. 3), central bank economists (McLeay, Radia & Thomas, 2014a, b;Keister & McAndrews, 2009, pp. 7-8;Deutsche Bundesbank, 2012, p. 76;Bang-Andersen, Risbjerg & Spange, 2014;Sveriges Riksbank, 2013, pp. ...
Educators and economists concerned with monetary reform face the extraordinary challenge of explaining to the public and its elected representatives not only what a reformed system would look like, but also how the current system works.
... deposits that can be withdrawn any time without notice period). Two variants may be distinguished: First, Beneš and Kumhof (2012) return to Irving Fisher's Chicago Plan, which foresees essentially that banks have to hold the funds obtained through sight deposit issuance fully in the form of required reserves with the central bank (a sort of full reserve banking proposal). Second, Huber (1999, 5-6) explains the "plain" or "sovereign money" proposal, in which sight deposits with banks would be substituted by central bank money, i.e. banks would no longer have monetary liabilities. ...
This open access book gives a concise introduction to the practical implementation of monetary policy by modern central banks. It describes the conventional instruments used in advanced economies and the unconventional instruments that have been widely adopted since the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Illuminating the role of central banks in ensuring financial stability and as last resort lenders, it also offers an overview of the international monetary framework. A flow-of-funds framework is used throughout to capture this essential dimension in a consistent and unifying manner, providing a unique and accessible resource on central banking and monetary policy, and its integration with financial stability.
Addressed to professionals as well as bachelors and masters students of economics, this book is suitable for a course on economic policy. Useful prerequisites include at least a general idea of the economic institutions of an economy, and knowledge of macroeconomics and monetary economics, but readers need not be familiar with any specific macroeconomic models.
... 2 See also Benes and Kumhof (2012). ...
The coronavirus crisis has caused new distress in the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), as the southern part of the EMU has been hit stronger than the northern part. The common currency prevents nominal exchange rate adjustment in response to the asymmetric shock. Policymakers have therefore taken recourse to large-scale financial transfers. Based on the lessons from the German monetary union, this article proposes instead the introduction of parallel currencies to facilitate relative price changes. Parallel currencies in the south would allow an increase in competitiveness of the south via real depreciation. The introduction of a parallel currency in Germany would lead to capital inflows and a real appreciation of the new German mark. The pre-EMU pressure for structural adjustments and productivity gains would be restored.
... To bring clarity to this debate some analytical models have already been proposed. Benes and Kumhof (2012) formalize the Chicago Plan in a New Keynesian Model. They show that a FuB would indeed reduce economic fluc-tuations, prevent bank runs and decrease private and public debt. ...
In recent years, the debate on the role of commercial banks in the creation of private money has resurfaced. While the effects of fractional reserve banking on financial stability have been extensively studied, its long-run impact on borrowing costs for firms has not. By using a segmented market framework, we model a competitive economy with flexible prices, no liquidity risks, borrowing needs of firms and a banking sector that creates inside money. We show that a full reserve banking system would increase borrowing costs and consequently decrease production, absent any government intervention. Furthermore , we provide two policy proposals that could accommodate such a change, while leaving production and the price level unchanged.
... The depression of the 1930s and the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt provided the impetus for legislation regulating banks. The U.S. government never reached the point of taking the power to create money away from banks, but even the possibility is fertile ground for speculation (see Phillips 1999;Benes and Kumhof 2012). ...
The dominance of the rate of return on capital in government policy decisions and how it protects investors from threats to its decline, while harming everyone else. After outlining the key threats to the rate of return on capital, the policy decisions designed to address the threats and the overall harm that flows from these policies, the paper will explore the necessary measures to address those harms.
... This policy concept is directly linked to the theory of money multiplier. According to Benes and Kumhof (2012) and McLeay et al. (2014), it is no longer a binding constraint on money supply in reality, as central banks would typically supply the reserves on demand. In fact, some countries, such as the UK and Canada, there is no minimum reserve requirement. ...
This thesis investigates the linkages and the underlying causes of the current episode of global imbalances and of the 2007-09 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). It consists of three independent yet interconnected essays. The first essay is a theoretical paper. It sets the scene for the theoretical debates by first describing how the GFC unfolded, its economic consequences, the causes that are identified. It is followed by a critical assessment of three competing theories to explain the linkages between the global imbalances and the GFC: the global savings glut (GSG) hypothesis, the endogenous money (EM) and the global financing glut (GFG) hypotheses. The second essay is an empirical paper, which seeks evidence for each underlying logic chain behind the three theories. It has a particular focus on how credit creation and international capital flows impact on the US housing boom, credit boom, and consequently the consumption boom, before the GFC. A partial equilibrium model is built to simulate the propagation mechanisms based on the empirical findings. The third essay is a modelling chapter. It begins with a discussion of the development of macroeconomic models in general. Following Wynne Godley’s stock-flow consistent (SFC) modelling approach, the focus of this essay is to build a fully estimated empirical SFC model for the UK. The model features detailed financial balance sheets for the banking sector, which can be used to simulate the endogenous credit creation process and the interactions between the real and the financial sector within an economy. The simulations focus on the role of housing finance in generating the economic expansions and contractions as discussed in the second paper.
... The idea of 100 percent reserve requirements has gained adherents on the occasions of major financial crises. It received a renewed impetus following the 2007-08 financial crisis; recent advocates of the idea include Benes and Kumhof (2012), Wolf (2014) and Cochrane (2016). For example, Cochrane would apply the scheme to bank-like entities, such as money-market mutual funds; such entities would be allowed to invest only in short-term debt issued by the Treasury or the Fed. ...
Purpose
Bank lending is the major source of monetary expansion. Bank-led money creation is a key issue in both conventional and Islamic financial systems. The purpose of this paper is to examine the issues related to Islamic banking money creation. In this conceptual paper, the authors investigate the involvement of profit and loss sharing (PLS) in money creation and especially how can PLS limit money creation “out of nothing.” In this regard, the authors examine the potential of the PLS principle in tackling the excessive money creation phenomenon.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a normative approach regarding Islamic bank money creation that fits Sharia directives. In fact, this study discusses “what ought to be,” that is, the values and norms of PLS money creation that impede excessive money creation.
Findings
Overall, Islamic banks create money differently compared to conventional ones. Especially, by avoiding a purely financial intermediary, money creation under the PLS principle sustains a strong relationship with the real economy and leads to a lower money multiplier. Therefore, PLS mechanisms allow financing through real assets and not credit assets “out of nothing.” This could prevent excessive money creation from causing harmful effects on indebtedness and financial instability.
Practical implications
PLS offers a valuable resolution for banking system money creation through the optimization of Islamic bank financing by facilitating the separation of the monetary function from the credit one. This reform thought reinforces the stability value of money allowing it to fully perform its functions with reference to the directives of Sharia. This especially allows the integrity and purchasing power of money, the reduction of the gap between the evolution of both real and financial economies and, consequently, the indebtedness and crisis. It is recommended to promote PLS financing by reforming institutional and regulatory constraints.
Originality/value
This study addresses the contemporary issue of money creation by Islamic banks through the PLS approach. The conceptual framework of this paper highlights the reformist role of PLS in limiting money creation through Mudarabah approach within fractional reserve banking.
The rise of CBDC and the gradually diminishing importance of bank money will loosen today’s overly tight bonds between central bank and banks. Options for monetary quantity policy are becoming available again. The effectiveness of central-bank interest-rate policy is being enhanced. The horizon of variables relevant to monetary policy is broadening, e.g. in terms of non-GDP finance and asset inflation. More clearly than before, central banks are becoming national monetary authorities, the monetary power of the state, complementing the executive, legislative and judicial branches. In this function, monetary policy must be independent, comparable to the independence of jurisdiction, i.e. independent from government directives as well as from the immediate requests of banks and financial markets. Monetary, fiscal and private-creditary responsibilities must not be blurred, while responsive cross-domain cooperation remains indispensable. From such a position, a central bank will not only contribute to refinancing the banking sector, but can, within the scope of always limited potentials, also directly contribute to the monetary financing of government expenditure. The creation of CBDC as a monetary asset and as sovereign base money suggests a modified monetary accounting procedure.
Today, the future belongs to digital money, for it is technologically superior to book money. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and private digital currencies—be they stablecoins or unbacked cryptos—are vying to succeed bank money as the dominant type of money. CBDC is likely to emerge from this as the winner, because CBDC is superior to private cryptos by virtue of being legal tender and safe-stock base money, and also because of the no longer negligible constitutional need to take back monetary control and be able to implement monetary policy effectively. Bank money, presently still dominant, competes against both CBDC and private digital monies to assert its position. Bank money may well persist for a longer period of time, albeit gradually declining in importance. Central-bank reserves will over time be going down together with bank money, or be replaced with CBDC early on. Solid cash is not a systemically defining factor any more.
Rising public debt everywhere has raised the question of how to reduce debt again in the future. High public debt also seems to be an impediment for the exit of central banks from ultra‐low interest rates and quantitative easing. Historical precedents and proposals have included austerity, haircuts and the generation of inflation. Each way has advantages and disadvantages, including uncertainty about effects and side‐effects. We approach the issue from an historical perspective, based on case studies of prominent approaches to debt reduction. We analyze debt reduction through economic austerity in Italy, hyperinflation in Germany after World War I, inflation in Argentina since the 1980s, currency reform in Germany after WW II, and financial repression in the United States and the United Kingdom after WW II. Finally, we discuss Ronald McKinnon's order of economic and financial liberalization as well as the Chicago Plan combined with the introduction of central bank digital currencies as an option for the future.
In macroeconomics, an emerging discussion of alternative monetary systems addresses the dimensions of systemic risk in advanced financial systems. Monetary regime changes with the aim of achieving a more sustainable financial system have already been discussed in several European parliaments and were the subject of a referendum in Switzerland. However, their effectiveness and efficacy concerning macro-financial stability are not well-known. This paper defines the economic requirements for modeling the current monetary system and introduces the corresponding macroeconomic agent-based model (MABM) in a continuous-time stochastic agent-based simulation environment with a provenance model. This MABM aims to present a starting point for exploring and analyzing monetary reforms. In this context, the monetary system affects the lending potential of banks and might impact the dynamics of financial crises. MABMs are predestined to replicate emergent financial crisis dynamics, analyze institutional changes within a financial system, and thus measure macro-financial stability. The used simulation environment makes the model more accessible and facilitates exploring the impact of different hypotheses and mechanisms in a less complex way. Moreover, the model replicates a wide range of stylized economic facts, which validates it as an analysis tool to implement and compare monetary regime shifts.
A világ összes adóssága 2019 végén mintegy 240 ezermilliárd USD-t tett ki. Eladósodottak az államok, a vállalatok, a háztartások és a bankok is. Az eladósodás folyamatát tekintve láthatók a nagyobb gazdasági, politikai események hatásai. Az eladósodottság növekedése más-más trendet mutat a fejlett és a feltörekvő országoknál. A végső kérdés: van-e kiút az adósságcsapdából? Erre a kérdésre egyes szakemberek (S. Gesell, I. Fisher, J. M. Keynes) válaszai mellett mi is két javaslatot teszünk. A könnyebben megvalósítható változat a jegybanki függetlenség újraértelmezésével megengedné a jegybank fejlesztési célú finanszírozási működését. A problémára a másik javaslatunk a pénzteremtés és az eladósodás szétválasztására irányul. Véleményünk szerint a fenntarthatatlan helyzet megoldható, ha az állam a jegybank segítségével saját kezébe veszi a pénzkibocsátást.
Set against the origins and consequences of the global financial crisis, this timely book offers an enriching and revealing narrative of the role that the state plays in regulating markets. Focusing on core areas of private law such as corporate, labour and banking law, the contributors offer a conceptual framework in which to examine the central tenets of the role of private law in today's global economy. In the current climate of ever increasing economic inequality and austerity measures, the authors highlight the urgent need for a comprehensive analysis of the continuing tension between ideas of market liberalism and theories of society. With a focus on both the domestic and transnational dimensions of market governance, the authors offer a crucial insight into the co-existence and interaction between state and market-based economic governance.
History suggests a conflict between current Basel III liquidity ratios and monetary policy, which we call the liquidity regulation dilemma. Although forgotten, liquidity ratios, named “securities‐reserve requirements,” were widely used historically, but for monetary policy (not regulatory) reasons, as central bankers recognized the contractionary effects of these ratios. We build a model rationalizing historical policies: a tighter ratio reduces the quantity of assets that banks can pledge as collateral, thus increasing interest rates. Tighter liquidity regulation paradoxically increases the need for central bank's interventions. Liquidity ratios were also used to keep yields on government bonds low when monetary policy tightened.
Im Mittelpunkt steht das Buchgeld der Zentralbank, das als „Arbeitsguthaben“ bzw. Liquidität als Deckung für den unbaren Zahlungsverkehr dient. Thematisiert wird das Zusammenspiel mit der Mindestreserve, das Durchwirken des Geldmarktzinses bzw. der Negativverzinsung überschüssigen Zentralbankgeldes auf die Konditionen im Passivgeschäft der Banken. Die Idee einer Steuerung des Geldmarktzinses etwa ausschließlich über den Zentralbankgeldbedarf für Arbeitsguthaben im Zahlungsverkehr wird vorgestellt, ebenso wie die Auswirkungen der verschiedensten Bankgeschäfte auf den Zu- und Abfluss von Zentralbankgeld. Der Quotient aus Zahlungsverkehrsvolumen zu Arbeitsguthaben bei der Zentralbank weist eine besonders hohe Umschlagshäufigkeit aus in 2013 und 2014, die danach aber wegen der einsetzenden höheren Liquiditätsausstattung der Banken absinkt.
This article assesses the theory of credit mechanics within the context of the current money supply debate. Credit mechanics and related approaches were developed by a group of German monetary economists during the 1920s-1960s. Credit mechanics overcomes a one-sided, bank-centric view of money creation, which is often encountered in monetary theory. We show that the money supply is influenced by the interplay of loan creation and repayment rates; the relative share of credit volume neutral debtor-to-debtor and creditor-to-creditor payments; the availability of loan security; and the behaviour of non-banks and non-borrowing bank creditors. With the standard textbook models of money creation now discredited, we argue that a more general approach to money supply theory involving credit mechanics needs to be re-established.
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the relationship between money creation process and banking performance for Tunisian listed banks, particularly in the context of increased economic policy uncertainty.
Design/methodology/approach
In the relevant literature, there are two theories of money creation. The theory of money creation out of nothing, by using the central bank for refinancing and the theory of financial intermediation, from which money creation is made from preexisting savings. In this paper, the authors utilize a panel data for a sample composed of 11 Tunisian banks during the period of study from 1999 to 2019.
Findings
The study’s empirical analysis show that both forms of money creation have a positive impact on bank profitability as measured by the return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) ratios. However, the same analysis shows that the channel of money creation out of nothing is the most profitable for banks. Also, the authors show that economic policy uncertainty negatively influences the relationship between money creation and banking profitability only when credit creation is derived from savings.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by explaining the nexus between money creation and Tunisian banking performance which depends on the implementation of stable and conducive economic and political environment. Also, this link requires the implementation of monetary measures to encourage savings and develop an efficient capital market and judicious monetary policy enabling the central bank to inject more liquidity into the economy.
The dominance of deposit money means commercial banks play a leading role in money creation. This chapter puts this situation in a historical context. The functioning of our financial monetary system and the role of banks have changed fundamentally over time. The chapter reveals that what we take for granted today was often far from self-evident yesterday. We focus on the Netherlands and discuss four periods in turn: (1) the ‘long nineteenth century’ up to the First World War, with an emphasis on the 1870−1914 period, (2) the interwar period (1918−1939), (3) the Bretton Woods period (1944−1973) and (4) the decades leading up to the latest financial crisis (1973−2008).
This chapter addresses the broad outlines of a sovereign money system as advocated in recent proposals. In such a system, money can only be created by the central bank, and the institutions that lend money (we call them financing institutions) are strictly separated from those that make up the payment system. We do not delve into the details of each proposal but focus on their overarching characteristics. We first outline what these proposals imply for the payment system as well as for investing and lending. We then turn to the government’s role and responsibilities in the new system, including how money is created and enters society, and discuss transition paths to the new system.
This Open Access book from the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy explains how money creation and banking works, describes the main problems of the current monetary and financial system and discusses several reform options. This book systematically evaluates proposals for fundamental monetary reform, including ideas to separate money and credit by breaking up banks, introducing a central bank digital currency, and introducing public payment banks. By drawing on these plans, the authors suggest several concrete reforms to the current banking system with the aim to ensure that the monetary system remains stable, contributes to the Dutch economy, fairly distributes benefits, costs and risks, and enjoys public legitimacy. This systematic approach, and the accessible way in which the book is written, allows specialized and non-specialised readers to understand the intricacies of money, banking, monetary reform and financial innovation, far beyond the Dutch context.
We study the macroeconomic consequences of issuing central bank digital currency (CBDC) - a universally-accessible and interest-bearing central bank liability that competes with bank deposits as medium of exchange. In a DSGE model calibrated to match the pre-2008 US, we find that CBDC issuance of 30% of GDP, against government bonds, could permanently raise GDP by 3%, due to lower real interest rates, distortionary taxes, and monetary transaction costs. Countercyclical CBDC policy rules, as a second monetary policy tool, could substantially improve the central bank’s ability to stabilise the business cycle. Risks to banks can be minimized through appropriate issuance arrangements.
This chapter accomplishes four tasks. First, we situate what we have learned so far within the context of sustainable natural resource management. The imperative of sustainability places some constraints on how and when Nature should be treated as a source of universal dividends. Second, we explore the possibility of articulating a general theory of common wealth dividends, one that can unify the insights from the domains of land, natural resources, and ecosystem services and extend them to other domains such as man-made commons. Specifically, we examine the public trust doctrine, the labor theory of property, and the concept of economic rent. Third, we look at some specific examples of man-made commons (or commons with man-made elements) as candidate sources of common wealth dividends. Finally, we review some parameters of common wealth dividend program design.
Humans’ perception of money often is like a fish’s perception of water. Fish see water as neutral, unchangeable, like a natural law. Similarly, many of us consider money a neutral element that enables our individual desires and societal goals. Money is seen to be like a thermometer: we insert it into water and it simply measures the temperature. But money is not neutral. If we want to understand the nature of water, we need first to step out of the it, then examine it. The same is true of the monetary system. Only by distancing ourselves from it do we become able to see that the monetary system in its current unbalanced form forces us onto a non-sustainable path: it enhances income and wealth disparity, pushes us onto a forced growth trajectory, and is intrinsically unstable, favoring short-term private yields. This system acts in a mainly pro-cyclical manner and exacerbates anxiety, greed, and competition while reducing social capital such as trust and solidarity. And despite advanced new technologies and well-intended individual lifestyle changes, the monetary system prevents us from achieving a more sound, stable and sustainable future. In consequence, more of the same simply will generate more of these unwanted, one-sided and unbalanced results—over and over again.
Recent developments in both the Bahá’í community and the field of economics have opened up new vistas in the application of Bahá’í principles to economic questions, both in theory and in practice. The Bahá’í community has grown enough that the Universal House of Justice, in its 1 March 2017 message, has called on Bahá’ís to concern themselves increasingly with the inequalities in the world and to bring their personal lives and the actions of their Bahá’í communities more in line with the high moral standards and principles of compassion and service in the teachings of their Faith. At the same time, the economics profession is more open to new directions of thought and research following the financial crisis of 2007–08 and the subsequent global recession, which exposed the shortcomings of the macroeconomic models that the profession had spent the previous several decades constructing. Some of the fields that appear most fertile for the application of Bahá’í principles to current economic problems are reviewed in this article.
One of the problems perceived to be at the heart of the global financial crisis was an amalgamation of various commercial and investment banking activities under one entity, as well as the interconnectedness of the banking entities with other financial institutions, investment funds, and the shadow banking system. This paper focuses on various measures that aim to structurally separate the banking entities and their core functions from riskier financial activities such as (proprietary) trading or investments in alternative investment funds. Although banking structural reforms in the EU, the UK, and the US have taken different forms, their common denominator is the separation of core banking functions from certain trading or securities market activities. Having reviewed the arguments for and against banking structural reforms and their varieties in major jurisdictions, including the EU, UK, US, France, and Germany, the paper argues that a more nuanced approach to introducing such measures at the EU level is warranted. Given the different market structures across the Atlantic and the lack of conclusive evidence of the beneficial impact of banking structural reforms, the paper concludes that the withdrawal of the banking structural reforms proposal by the European Commission has been a prudent move. It seems that in the absence of concrete evidence, experimenting with structural reforms at the Member-State level would be less costly and would provide for opportunities for learning from smaller experiments that could pave the way for a more optimal approach to banking structural reforms at the European level in the future.
IT progress and its application to the financial industry have inspired central banks and academics to reflect about the merits of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) accessible to the broad public. This paper first briefly recalls the advantages that have been associated with CBDC and reviews some relevant background from the history of the issuance of different forms of central bank money. It then discusses two key arguments against CBDC, namely (i) risk of structural disintermediation of banks and centralization of the credit allocation process within the central bank and (ii) risk of facilitation systemic runs on banks in crisis situations. The paper proposes as solution a two-tier remuneration of CBDC, as a tested and simple tool to control the quantity of CBDC both in normal and crisis times. It is, however, also acknowledged that controlling the quantity of CBDC is not necessarily sufficient to control its impact on the financial system. Finally, the paper compares the financial account implications of CBDC with the one of crypto assets, stable coins, and narrow bank digital money, noting the similarity and differences in terms of implications on the financial system. It is concluded that well-controlled CBDC seems feasible, without this implying that CBDC would not catalyze change in the financial system.
Il s'agit d'une traduction intégrale en anglais de la thèse originale, dont une partie est en français. / This is an English translation of the original version of the thesis, part of which was written in French.
Zombies, also „untote“ Unternehmen sind eine Gefahr für gesunde Unternehmen, was im zwölften Kapitel gezeigt wird. Denn sie sind, finanziert über die Zentralbanken mit ihrer Niedrigzinspolitik, die die Kapitalknappheit aufgelöst und damit die Selbstreinigungskräfte der Märkte durch Insolvenzen abgeschafft hat, in der Lage, die Kapitalbasis solider Unternehmen über den normalen Wettbewerbsprozess zu erodieren. Das wird für Europa am Beispiel des Draghiats als Herrschaft der Zentralbank gezeigt.
Cette thèse étudie la proposition 100% monnaie, telle qu’elle fut formulée aux États-Unis dans les années 1930 par Henry Simons (l’auteur principal du « Plan de Chicago »), Lauchlin Currie et Irving Fisher notamment. L’essence de cette proposition est de divorcer la création de monnaie des prêts de monnaie : les dépôts servant de moyens de paiement seraient soumis à 100% de réserve en monnaie légale, conférant à l’État un monopole de la création monétaire. Cette idée de réforme étant régulièrement sujette à confusion, nous entreprenons de clarifier son concept et d’étudier ses principaux arguments. Au chapitre 1, nous montrons que le 100% monnaie ne saurait être considéré comme un simple avatar des idées de la « Currency School » : contrairement à l’Acte de Peel de 1844, il ne contient en soi aucune règle d’émission, laissant ouvert le débat « règle ou discrétion ». Au chapitre 2, distinguant entre deux grandes approches du 100% monnaie, nous montrons que celui-ci n’implique nullement d’abolir l’intermédiation bancaire basée sur les dépôts d’épargne. Au chapitre 3, nous analysons, à travers les travaux de Fisher, l’objectif principal du 100% monnaie : celui de mettre fin au comportement procyclique du volume de monnaie, causé par le lien de dépendance entre création monétaire et prêts bancaires. Au chapitre 4, nous étudions un autre argument du 100% monnaie : celui de permettre une réduction de la dette publique, en rendant à l’État l’intégralité du seigneuriage – argument souvent critiqué, dont nous montrons qu’il n’est pourtant pas infondé. Alors que le 100% monnaie suscite un regain d’intérêt depuis la crise de 2008, il nous a paru fondamental de clarifier ces questions.
This paper presents a stock–flow consistent model of full-reserve banking. The paper investigates money creation through government spending in a full-reserve banking system. The results are contrasted against the cases in which government spending is increased under full-reserve banking without money creation and under endogenous money, that is, the current monetary system. It is found that output, employment and inflation evolve almost identically. In contrast to other cases, money creation in a full-reserve banking system leads to a permanent reduction in consolidated government debt. Monetary policy transmits effectively as an increase in central bank reserves translates into an almost equal increase in demand deposits. Furthermore, an unusually large change in the money supply induces only smooth and relatively small changes in interest rates. In addition, the paper compares three additional ways to create money. Money creation through tax cuts or citizen’s dividend generates roughly the same results as creating money through government spending. In contrast, money creation through quantitative easing affects only monetary aggregates and interest rates but not the real economy. Although in every money creation experiment banks are able to fully satisfy the demand for loans, temporary credit crunches can occur under full-reserve banking. The occurrence of credit crunches depends on changes in private behaviour and economic policy as well as safety margins adopted by banks.
This paper studies the empirical and theoretical link between increases in income inequality and increases in current account deficits. Cross-sectional econometric evidence shows that higher top income shares, and also financial liberalization, which is a common policy response to increases in income inequality, are associated with substantially larger external deficits. To study this mechanism we develop a DSGE model that features workers whose income share declines at the expense of investors. Loans to workers from domestic and foreign investors support aggregate demand and result in current account deficits. Financial liberalization helps workers smooth consumption, but at the cost of higher household debt and larger current account deficits. In emerging markets, workers cannot borrow from investors, who instead deploy their surplus funds abroad, leading to current account surpluses instead of deficits.
The paper studies how high leverage and crises can arise as a result of changes in the income distribution. Empirically, the periods 1920-1929 and 1983-2008 both exhibited a large increase in the income share of the rich, a large increase in leverage for the remainder, and an eventual financial and real crisis. The paper presents a theoretical model where these features arise endogenously as a result of a shift in bargaining powers over incomes. A financial crisis can reduce leverage if it is very large and not accompanied by a real contraction. But restoration of the lower income group's bargaining power is more effective.
We study the welfare properties of a New Keynesian monetary economy with an essential role for risky bank lending. Banks lend funds deposited by households to a financial accelerator sector, and face penalties for maintaining insufficient net worth. The loan contract specifies an unconditional lending rate, which implies that banks can make loan losses. Their main response is to raise lending rates to rebuild net worth. Prudential rules that adjust minimum capital adequacy requirements in response to loan losses significantly increase welfare. But the gains from eliminating limited liability and moral hazard would be an order of magnitude larger.
We augment a standard monetary DSGE model to include a banking sector and financial markets. We fit the model to Euro Area and US data. We find that agency problems in financial contracts, liquidity constraints facing banks and shocks that alter the perception of market risk and hit financial intermediation — ‘financial factors’ in short — are prime determinants of economic fluctuations. They have been critical triggers and propagators in the recent financial crisis. Financial intermediation turns an otherwise diversifiable source of idiosyncratic economic uncertainty, the ‘risk shock’, into a systemic force.
Understanding the role of money in the economy has always been an important issue for policymakers. And the pickup in broad money growth and decline in credit spreads over the past three years together with more recent financial market turbulence has made it a particularly pertinent issue. Monetary data can potentially provide important corroborative or incremental information about the outlook for inflation. But understanding the possible implications of money for the economic outlook requires a detailed assessment of the causes of money growth. Such an assessment must recognise the interactions between money and credit creation and the information contained in both price and quantity data. This article provides an overview of the potential channels through which money growth may affect inflation and the Bank's current empirical approach to analysing developments in monetary aggregates.
Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing--and recovering--their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different"--claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong. Covering sixty-six countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes--from medieval currency debasements to today's subprime catastrophe. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, leading economists whose work has been influential in the policy debate concerning the current financial crisis, provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations. The authors draw important lessons from history to show us how much--or how little--we have learned. Using clear, sharp analysis and comprehensive data, Reinhart and Rogoff document that financial fallouts occur in clusters and strike with surprisingly consistent frequency, duration, and ferocity. They examine the patterns of currency crashes, high and hyperinflation, and government defaults on international and domestic debts--as well as the cycles in housing and equity prices, capital flows, unemployment, and government revenues around these crises. While countries do weather their financial storms, Reinhart and Rogoff prove that short memories make it all too easy for crises to recur. An important book that will affect policy discussions for a long time to come, This Time Is Different exposes centuries of financial missteps.
This paper studies the role of credit supply factors in business cycle fluctuations using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with financial frictions enriched with an imperfectly competitive banking sector. Banks issue collateralized loans to both households and firms, obtain funding via deposits, and accumulate capital out of retained earnings. Loan margins depend on the banks' capital-to-assets ratio and on the degree of interest rate stickiness. Balance-sheet constraints establish a link between the business cycle, which affects bank profits and thus capital, and the supply and cost of loans. The model is estimated with Bayesian techniques using data for the euro area. The analysis delivers the following results. First, the banking sector and, in particular, sticky rates attenuate the effects of monetary policy shocks, while financial intermediation increases the propagation of supply shocks. Second, shocks originating in the banking sector explain the largest share of the contraction of economic activity in 2008, while macroeconomic shocks played a limited role. Third, an unexpected destruction of bank capital may have substantial effects on the economy. Copyright (c) 2010 The Ohio State University.
The financial crisis has refocused attention on money and credit fluctuations, financial crises, and policy responses. We study the behavior of money, credit, and macroeconomic indicators over the long run based on a new historical dataset for 14 countries over the years 1870-2008. Total credit has increased strongly relative to output and money in the second half of the twentieth century. Monetary policy responses to financial crises have also been more aggressive, but the output costs of crises have remained large. Credit growth is a powerful predictor of financial crises, suggesting that policymakers ignore credit at their peril. (JEL E32, E44, E52, G01, N10, N20)
This paper examines the role of bank lending in the transmission of monetary policy in the presence of capital adequacy regulations. I develop a dynamic model of bank asset and liability management that incorporates risk-based capital requirements and an imperfect market for bank equity. These conditions imply a failure of the Modigliani-Miller theorem for the bank: its lending will depend on the bank’s financial structure, as well as on lending opportunities and market interest rates. Combined with a maturity mismatch on the bank’s balance sheet, this gives rise to a ‘bank capital channel’ by which monetary policy affects bank lending through its impact on bank equity capital. This mechanism does not rely on any particular role of bank reserves and thus falls outside the conventional ‘bank lending channel’. I analyze the dynamics of the new channel. An important result is that monetary policy effects on bank lending depend on the capital adequacy of the banking sector; lending by banks with low capital has a delayed and then amplified reaction to interest rate shocks, relative to well-capitalized banks. Other implications are that bank capital affects lending even when the regulatory constraint is not momentarily binding, and that shocks to bank profits, such as loan defaults, can have a persistent impact on lending
We present a model embodying moderate amounts of nominal rigidities that accounts for the observed inertia in inflation and persistence in output. The key features of our model are those that prevent a sharp rise in marginal costs after an expansionary shock to monetary policy. Of these features, the most important are staggered wage contracts that have an average duration of three quarters and variable capital utilization.
The authors examine an economy with aggregate and idiosyncratic income risk in which agents cannot contract on future labor income. Agents trade financial securities to buffer idiosyncratic shocks but the extent of trade is limited by borrowing constraints and transactions costs. The effect of frictions on the equity premium is decomposed into two components: a direct effect due to the equation of net-of-costs margins and an indirect effect due to increased consumption volatility. Simulations suggest that the direct effect dominates and that the model predicts a sizable equity premium only if costs are large or the quantity of tradable assets is limited. Copyright 1996 by University of Chicago Press.
As the financial crisis deepened and unsecured interbank markets effectively shut down, repo market activity became increasingly concentrated in the very shortest maturities and against the highest-quality collateral. Repo rates for US Treasury collateral fell relative to overnight index swap rates, while comparable sovereign repo rates in the euro area and the United Kingdom rose. The different dynamics across markets reflected, among other things, differences in the intensity of market disruptions and the extent of the scarcity of sovereign collateral.
A much higher fraction of U.S. households would benefit financially from bankruptcy than actually file. While the current bankruptcy filing rate is about 1% of households each year, I calculate that at least 15% of households would benefit financially from filing and the actual figure would be several times higher if most households plan in advance for the possibility of filing. Two explanations are explored for why more households don't file for bankruptcy. The first is a model of the interaction between creditors' remedies against debtors who default and the debtors' right to file for bankruptcy. The model implies that some debtors default but do not file for bankruptcy, even though they would benefit financially from doing so, because creditors do not always attempt to collect. The other explanation involves the option value of bankruptcy. Many debtors who would not benefit from filing immediately gain from having the option to file in the future. I calculate the value of the option for typical households and show that it can be very valuable, particularly for households that have high variance of the return to net wealth and households that live in states with high bankruptcy exemption levels. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.
We estimate the causal effect of mandatory participation in the military service on the involvement in criminal activities. We exploit the random assignment of young men to military service in Argentina through a draft lottery to identify this causal effect. Using a unique set of administrative data that includes draft eligibility, participation in the military service, and criminal records, we find that participation in the military service increases the likelihood of developing a criminal record in adulthood. The effects are not only significant for the cohorts that performed military service during war times, but also for those that provided service at peace times. We also find that military service has detrimental effects on future performance in the labor market.
With the use of nontraditional policy tools, the level of reserve balances has risen significantly in the United States since 2007. Before the financial crisis, reserve balances were roughly $20 billion whereas the level has risen well past $1 trillion. The effect of reserve balances in simple macroeconomic models often comes through the money multiplier, affecting the money supply and the amount of bank lending in the economy. Most models currently used for macroeconomic policy analysis, however, either exclude money or model money demand as entirely endogenous, thus precluding any causal role for reserves and money. Nevertheless, some academic research and many textbooks continue to use the money multiplier concept in discussions of money. We explore the institutional structure of the transmission mechanism beginning with open market operations through to money and loans. We then undertake empirical analysis of the relationship among reserve balances, money, and bank lending. We use aggregate as well as bank-level data in a VAR framework and document that the mechanism does not work through the standard multiplier model or the bank lending channel. In particular, if the level of reserve balances is expected to have an impact on the economy, it seems unlikely that a standard multiplier story will explain the effect.
Modern mainstream economics is attracting an increasing number of critics of its high degree of abstraction and lack of relevance to economic reality. Economists are calling for a better reflection of the reality of imperfect information, the role of banks and credit markets, the mechanisms of economic growth, the role of institutions and the possibility that markets may not clear. While it is one thing to find flaws in current mainstream economics, it is another to offer an alternative paradigm which, can explain as much as the old, but can also account for the many ‘anomalies’. That is what this book attempts. Since one of the biggest empirical challenges to the ‘old’ paradigm has been raised by the second largest economy in the world - Japan - this book puts the proposed ʼnew paradigm’ to the severe test of the Japanese macroeconomic reality.
This chapter develops a dynamic general equilibrium model that is intended to help clarify the role of credit market frictions in business fluctuations, from both a qualitative and a quantitative standpoint. The model is a synthesis of the leading approaches in the literature. In particular, the framework exhibits a “financial accelerator”, in that endogenous developments in credit markets work to amplify and propagate shocks to the macroeconomy. In addition, we add several features to the model that are designed to enhance the empirical relevance. First, we incorporate money and price stickiness, which allows us to study how credit market frictions may influence the transmission of monetary policy. In addition, we allow for lags in investment which enables the model to generate both hump-shaped output dynamics and a lead-lag relation between asset prices and investment, as is consistent with the data. Finally, we allow for heterogeneity among firms to capture the fact that borrowers have differential access to capital markets. Under reasonable parametrizations of the model, the financial accelerator has a significant influence on business cycle dynamics.
This paper studies optimal fiscal and monetary policy under sticky product prices. The theoretical framework is a stochastic production economy. The government finances an exogenous stream of purchases by levying distortionary income taxes, printing money, and issuing nominal non-state-contingent bonds. The main findings of the paper are: First, for a miniscule degree of price stickiness (i.e., many times below available empirical estimates) the optimal volatility of inflation is near zero. Second, small deviations from full price flexibility induce near random walk behavior in government debt and tax rates. Finally, price stickiness induces deviation from the Friedman rule.
The current …nancial crisis has made it abundantly clear that business cycle model-ing no longer can abstract from …nancial factors. It is also becoming increasingly clear that the stylized modeling of labor markets without explicit unemployment that is the current standard approach has its limitations. Some questions which the dominating extant business cycle models are mute on, but that we would like to answer are: How important are …nancial and labor market frictions for the business cycle dynamics of a small open economy? In particular, what are the quantitative e¤ects of …nancial factors on output and ination, and how do they interact with monetary policy? What drives the variation in the intensive and extensive margin of labor supply respectively? What is the estimated Frisch elasticity in a model that allows for both an intensive and an extensive margin of labor supply? In order to address these questions we extend what is becoming the standard new Keynesian model in three important dimensions. First, we incorporate …nancial frictions in the accumulation and management of capital. Second, we model the labor market using a search and matching framework. Third, we extend the model into a small open economy setting. We make a theoretical contribution by incorporating endogenous job separation in this rich framework. Finally, we estimate the full model using Bayesian techniques and illustrate the importance of the various frictions. seminar participants at various presentations. The views expressed in this paper are solely the responsibility of the authors and should not be interpreted as reecting the views of the Executive Board of Sveriges Riksbank or of the European Central Bank.
The current National Income and Product Account measure of imputed bank services sold to borrowers is limited to loans retained on the balance sheet. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which the current approach understates nominal bank output by ignoring securitized loans. We document that imputed output is understated by more than 10 percent, but note that this has little impact on final GDP as a large fraction of securitized loans are residential mortgages.
With the use of nontraditional policy tools, the level of reserve balances has risen significantly in the United States since 2007. Before the financial crisis, reserve balances were roughly $20 billion whereas the level has risen well past $1 trillion. The effect of reserve balances in simple macroeconomic models often comes through the money multiplier, affecting the money supply and the amount of bank lending in the economy. Most models currently used for macroeconomic policy analysis, however, either exclude money or model money demand as entirely endogenous, thus precluding any causal role for reserves and money. Nevertheless, some academic research and many textbooks continue to use the money multiplier concept in discussions of money. We explore the institutional structure of the transmission mechanism beginning with open market operations through to money and loans. We then undertake empirical analysis of the relationship among reserve balances, money, and bank lending. We use aggregate as well as bank-level data in a VAR framework and document that the mechanism does not work through the standard multiplier model or the bank lending channel. In particular, if the level of reserve balances is expected to have an impact on the economy, it seems unlikely that a standard multiplier story will explain the effect.
We document that the percentage of all U.S. assets that are “safe” has remained stable at about 33 percent since 1952. This stable ratio is a rare example of calm in a rapidly changing financial world. Over the same time period, the ratio of U.S. assets to GDP has increased by a factor of 2.5, and the main supplier of safe financial debt has shifted from commercial banks to the “shadow banking system.” We analyze this pattern of stylized facts and offer some tentative conclusions about the composition of the safe-asset share and its role within the overall economy.
We develop a quantitative monetary DSGE model with financial intermediaries that face endogenously determined balance sheet constraints. We then use the model to evaluate the effects of the central bank using unconventional monetary policy to combat a simulated financial crisis. We interpret unconventional monetary policy as expanding central bank credit intermediation to offset a disruption of private financial intermediation. Within our framework the central bank is less efficient than private intermediaries at making loans but it has the advantage of being able to elastically obtain funds by issuing riskless government debt. Unlike private intermediaries, it is not balance sheet constrained. During a crisis, the balance sheet constraints on private intermediaries tighten, raising the net benefits from central bank intermediation. These benefits may be substantial even if the zero lower bound constraint on the nominal interest rate is not binding. In the event this constraint is binding, though, these net benefits may be significantly enhanced.
This paper investigates the long-run demand for M1 in the postwar United States. Previous studies, based on data ending in the late 1980s, are inconclusive about the parameters of postwar money demand. This paper obtains precise estimates of these parameters by extending the data through 1996. The income elasticity of money demand is approximately 0.5, and the interest semi-elasticity is approximately −0.05. These parameters are significantly smaller in absolute value than the corresponding parameters for the prewar period. A caveat is that the analysis assumes there is no trend in money demand resulting from technological change.
We find that in a sample of emerging economies business cycles are more volatile than in developed ones, real interest rates are countercyclical and lead the cycle, consumption is more volatile than output and net exports are strongly countercyclical. We present a model of a small open economy, where the real interest rate is decomposed in an international rate and a country risk component. Country risk is affected by fundamental shocks but, through the presence of working capital, also amplifies the effects of those shocks. The model generates business cycles consistent with Argentine data. Eliminating country risk lowers Argentine output volatility by 27% while stabilizing international rates lowers it by less than 3%.
Capital requirements are the cornerstone of modern bank regulation, yet little is known about their welfare cost. This paper measures this cost and finds that it is surprisingly large. I present a simple framework, which embeds the role of liquidity creating banks in an otherwise standard general equilibrium growth model. A capital requirement limits the moral hazard on the part of banks that arises due to deposit insurance. However, this capital requirement is also costly because it reduces the ability of banks to create liquidity. The key insight is that equilibrium asset returns reveal the strength of households’ preferences for liquidity and this allows for the derivation of a simple formula for the welfare cost of capital requirements that is a function of observable variables only. Using US data, the welfare cost of current capital adequacy regulation is found to be equivalent to a permanent loss in consumption of between 0.1% and 1%.
This paper focuses on the specification and stability of a dynamic, stochastic, general equilibrium model of the American business cycle with sticky prices. Maximum likelihood estimates reveal that the data prefer a version of the model in which adjustment costs apply to the price level but not to the inflation rate. Formal hypothesis tests detect instability in the estimated parameters, particularly in estimates of the representative household's discount factor. Evidently, more detailed descriptions of the economy are needed to explain movements in interest rates before and after 1979.
We develop a model of staggered prices along the lines of Phelps (1978) and Taylor (1979, 1980), but utilizing an analytically more tractable price-setting technology. ‘Demands’ are derived from utility maximization assuming Sidrauski-Brock infinitely-lived families. We show that the nature of the equilibrium path can be found out on the basis of essentially graphical techniques. Furthermore, we demonstrate the usefulness of the model by analyzing the welfare implications of monetary and fiscal policy, and by showing that despite the price level being a predetermined variable, a policy of pegging the nominal interest rate will lead to the existence of a continuum of equilibria.
We consider a general equilibrium model with frictions in credit markets used by households. In our economy, houses provide housing services to consumers and serve as collateral to lower borrowing cost. We show that this amplifies and propagates the effect of monetary policy shocks on housing investment, house prices and consumption. We also consider the effect of a structural change in credit markets that lowers the transaction costs of additional borrowing against housing equity. We show that such a change would increase the effect of monetary policy shocks on consumption, but would decrease the effect on house prices and housing investment.
We introduce banks, modeled as in Diamond and Rajan (JoF 2000 or JPE 2001), into a standard DSGE model and use this framework to study the role of banks in the transmission of shocks, the effects of monetary policy when banks are exposed to runs, and the interplay between monetary policy and Basel-like capital ratios. In equilibrium, bank leverage depends positively on the uncertainty of projects and on the bank’s "relationship lender" skills, and negatively on short term interest rates. A monetary restriction reduces leverage, while a productivity or asset price boom increases it. Procyclical capital ratios are destabilising; monetary policy can only partly offset this effect. The best policy combination includes mildly anticyclical capital ratios and a response of monetary policy to asset prices or leverage
In a paper co-written with Ester Faia of Geothe University Frankfurt, Visiting Fellow Ignazio Angeloni introduces banks into a standard DSGE model and uses this framework to study the role of banks in the transmission of shocks, the effects of monetary policy when banks are exposed to runs, and the interplay between monetary policy and Basel-like capital ratios.
Measuring cyclically-adjusted budget balances for OECD countries An important tool in the analysis of fiscal policy is the distinction between structural and cyclical components of the budget balance. This paper describes work undertaken to re-estimate and re-specify the elasticities underlying the Economics Department's calculations of cyclically-adjusted budget balances. Account is taken of tax reforms introduced since the previous updating exercise. A number of methodological innovations have been introduced to better account for the lags between taxes and activity and to ensure greater cross-country consistency in the estimates. The methodology underlying cyclical adjustment of expenditures has also been reviewed. Finally, the country coverage has been extended. The overall results are broadly consistent with the previous set of estimates. The sensitivity of government net lending to a 1 percentage point change in the output gap remains at around 0.5% of GDP for OECD economies on average.
Mesurer le solde budgétaire corrigé des fluctuations cycliques pour les pays de l’OCDE
La distinction entre les composantes structurelle et cyclique du solde budgétaire est un outil essentiel de l'analyse de la politique budgétaire. Cette étude présente le travail de ré-estimation et de re-modélisation entrepris afin de mettre à jour les élasticités sous-jacentes au calcul par le Département des Affaires Economiques du solde budgétaire corrigé des fluctuations conjoncturelles. Les réformes fiscales mise en œuvre depuis le dernier exercice de mise à jour ont été prises en compte. Un certain nombre d'améliorations méthodologiques ont été introduites afin de mieux tenir compte des délais d'ajustement entre les recettes fiscales et l'activité économique ainsi que pour assurer une meilleure cohérence des estimations entre les pays. La méthodologie utilisée pour l'ajustement cyclique des dépenses a aussi été revue. Finalement, le nombre de pays couvert a été augmenté. Les résultats globaux sont, dans l'ensemble, cohérents avec les estimations précédentes. La sensibilité du solde financier des administrations publiques à un changement d'un point de pourcentage de l'écart de production demeure autour de 0.5% du PIB pour la moyenne des pays de l'OCDE.
Post-1980 U.S. data trace out a stable long-run money demand relationship of Cagan's semi-log form between the M1-income ratio and the nominal interest rate, with an interest semi-elasticity below 2. Integrating under this money demand curve yields estimates of the welfare costs of modest departures from Friedman's zero nominal interest rate rule for the optimum quantity of money that are quite small. The results suggest that the Federal Reserve's current policy, which generates low but still positive rates of inflation, provides an adequate approximation in welfare terms to the alternative of moving all the way to the Friedman rule.
Does government debt affect interest rates? Despite a substantial body of empirical analysis, the answer based on the past two decades of research is mixed. While many studies suggest, at most, a single-digit rise in the interest rate when government debt increases by one percent of GDP, others estimate either much larger effects or find no effect. Comparing results across studies is complicated by differences in economic models, definitions of econometric approaches, and sources of data. Using a standard set of data and a simple analytical framework, we reconsider and add to empirical evidence on the effect of federal government debt and interest rates. We begin by deriving analytically the effect of government debt on the real interest rate and find that an increase in government debt equivalent to one percent of GDP would be predicted to increase the real interest rate by about two to three basis points. While some existing studies estimate effects in this range, others find larger effects. In almost all cases, these larger estimates come from specifications relating federal deficits (as opposed to debt) and the level of interest rates or from specifications not controlling adequately for macroeconomic influences on interest rates that might be correlated with deficits. We present our own empirical analysis in two parts. First, we examine a variety of conventional reduced-form specifications linking interest rates and government debt and other variables. In particular, we provide estimates for three types of specifications to permit comparisons among different approaches taken in previous research; we estimate the effect of: an expected, or projected, measure of federal government debt on a forward-looking measure of the real interest rate; an expected, or projected, measure of federal government debt on a current measure of the real interest rate; and a current measure of federal government debt on a current measure of the real interest rate. Most of the statistically significant estimated effects are consistent with the prediction of the simple analytical calculation. Second, we provide evidence using vector autoregression analysis. In general, these results are similar to those found in our reduced-form econometric analysis and consistent with the analytical calculations. Taken together, the bulk of our empirical results suggest that an increase in federal government debt equivalent to one percent of GDP, all else equal, would be expected to increase the long-term real rate of interest by about three basis points, though one specification suggests a larger impact, while some estimates are not statistically significantly different from zero. By presenting a range of results with the same data, we illustrate the dependence of estimation on specification and definition differences.
This paper develops a structural, dynamic model of a banking firm to analyze how banks adjust their loan portfolios over time. In the model, banks experience capital shocks, face uncertain future loan demand, and incur costs based on their proximity to regulatory minimum capital requirements and the intensity of regulatory monitoring. Implications of the model are then estimated using panel data on large US commercial banks operating continuously between December 1989 and December 1997. The estimated model is then used to simulate the optimal bank response to (a) past and proposed changes in capital requirements, (b) changes in regulatory monitoring intensity, and (c) economic downturns. The simulation results are used to shed light on the decline in loan growth and the rise in bank capital ratios witnessed over a decade ago, as well as shed light on the possible impact of the current proposed modification to capital requirements.
This paper argues that the reporting of facts in light of theory fosters the development of theory. Dynamic neoclassical macro theory guided the selection of facts to report. The hope is that these facts will foster the further development of this theory. A finding is that the price level is countercyclical in the post-Korean War period. This finding debunks the myths that the price level is procyclical, with the postwar period being no exception.
The average cash to assets ratio for U.S. industrial firms increases by 129% from 1980 to 2004. Because of this increase in the average cash ratio, firms at the end of the sample period can pay back all of their debt obligations with their cash holdings, so that the average firm has no leverage when leverage is measured by net debt. This change in cash ratios and net debt is the result of a secular trend rather than the outcome of the recent buildup in cash holdings of some large firms, but is more pronounced for firms that do not pay dividends. The average cash ratio increases over the sample period because firms change: their cash flow becomes riskier, they hold fewer inventories and accounts receivable, and are increasingly R&D intensive. The precautionary motive for cash holdings appears to explain the increase in the average cash ratio.
Matlab codes for 'Closing Small Open Economy Models.' Notes: (1) Symbolic Math Toolbox is required (2) The files listed under "General Tools" below are required. Contents: Endogenous Discount Factor Model: mendoza91.m, mendoza91_ss.m, mendoza91_run.m; Endogenous Discount Factor Model without Internalization: mendoza91s.m, mendoza91s_ss.m, mendoza91s_run.m; Debt Elastic Interest Rate Model: deir.m, deir_ss.m, deir_run.m; Portfolio Adjustment Cost Model: bac.m, bac_ss.m, bac_run.m; Complete Asset Markets Model: cam.m, cam_ss.m, cam_run.m; The Nonstationary Case: rw.m, rw_ss.m, rw_run.m; General Tools: gx_hx.m, solab.m (by Paul Klein), qzswitch.m (by Chris Sims), reorder.m (taken from Paul Klein's website), anal_deriv.m, num_eval.m, mom.m, ir.m.
Public finance solutions to the European unemployment problem?
Developing countries may hold as much as 25-30% of the $1.3 trillion OECD currency supply. Although dollar holdings appear to exceed DM holdings by a factor of four, the advent of the euro may change this balance. Indeed, by issuing large-denomination notes of 100, 200 and 500, the European Central Bank appears to be well poised to challenge the dominance of the ubiquitous US $100 note. However, large-denomination notes are also extremely popular in the OECD underground economy, which appears to hold at least 50% of the currency supply. As a result, the seigniorage revenues obtained by issuing large-denomination notes may be an accounting illusion, substantially or fully offset by losses due to increased tax evasion. Hence, the new European Central Bank may wish to consider policies that discourage underground use of currency, even at the expense of losing out on foreign demand.
— Kenneth Rogoff
This paper provides new evidence that sustained budget deficits reduce national saving and raise interest rates by economically and statistically significant quantities. Using a series of econometric specifications that nest Ricardian and non-Ricardian models, we obtain evidence of strong non-Ricardian behavior in aggregate consumption. Consistent with several recent studies, we find that projected future deficits affect longterm interest rates, but current deficits do not. Our estimates suggest that each percent-of-GDP in current deficits reduces national saving by 0.5 to 0.8 percent of GDP. Each percent-of-GDP in projected future unified deficits raises forward long-term interest rates by 25 to 35 basis points, and each percent-of-GDP in projected future primary deficits raises interest rates by 40 to 70 basis points.
Memorandum on Banking Reform
- Knight