Chapter 15 The specification and influence of asset markets

This chapter discusses portfolio balance models with postulated asset demands, asset demands broadly consistent with but not directly implied by microeconomic theory. The demand for the sum of assets denominated in each currency is homogeneous of degree one in nominal wealth, and the demand for money in each country depends on the return on the security denominated in that country's currency but not on the return on securities denominated in other currencies. However, under these same assumptions the demand for money depends on real wealth. Because the conclusions of macroeconomic analysis often depend crucially on the form of asset demand functions, it is important to continue to explore the implications of the microeconomic theory and other microeconomic approaches. The chapter discusses that the consumer arrives at his or her asset demands by maximizing his or her utility given interest rates and the parameters of the distributions of prices and exchange rates. The distributions of prices and exchange rates are not invariant to changes in the distributions of policy variables and stochastic components of tastes and technology. It has been recognized that a very important item on the research agenda is imbedding consumer's asset demands based on utility maximization in a general equilibrium model in which the distributions of prices and exchange rates are determined endogenously.