This paper investigates whether the quantity theory of money is still alive. We demonstrate three insights. First, for countries with low inflation, the raw relationship between average inflation and the growth rate of money is tenuous at best. Second, the fit markedly improves, when correcting...

This paper reviews the extensive theoretical and empirical literature on currency substitution. After discussing the ambiguity surrounding the definition of currency substitution, the paper illustrates the causes of substitutability of different currencies using a cash-in-advance model and a...

The Paper studies the implications of the zero lower bound on the short nominal rate of interest for the conduct of monetary policy in a small open economy with a floating exchange rate and perfect international capital mobility. Monetary policy affects aggregate demand through the real exchange...

The introduction of the euro notes and coins during the first months of 2002 was followed by a lively debate on the alleged inflationary effects of the new currency. In Italy, as in the rest of the euro area, survey-based measures signaled a much sharper rise in inflation than measured by the...

The Paper provides a formalization of the monetary economics folk proposition that government fiat money is an asset of the holder (the private sector) but not a liability of the issuer (the state). Money is 'net wealth' in the limited sense that, after consolidation of the intertemporal budget...

We derive principles of optimal short run monetary policy in a real business cycles model, with money and with monopolistic firms that set prices one period in advance. The only distortionary policy intruments are the nominal interest rates and the money supplies. In this environment it is...

We determine the optimal combination of taxes on money, consumption and income in transactions technology models where exogenous government expenditures must be financed with distortionary taxes. We show that the optimal policy does not tax money, regardless of whether the government can use as...

Central banks can go broke and have done so, although mainly in developing countries. The conventional balance sheet of the central bank is uninformative about the financial resources it has at its disposal and about its ability to act as an effective lender of last resort and market marker of...

In contrast to the recent literature on the optimal inflation tax, we show that, in models where money reduces transactions costs, it is optimal to set the inflation tax to zero when seigniorage is replaced by revenue from distortionary taxes. The main reasons for this result are that the...

Should one think of zero nominal interest rates as an undesirable liquidity trap or as the desirable Friedman rule? I use three different frameworks to discuss this issue. First, I restate Cole and Kocherlakota's (1998) analysis of Friedman's rule: short run increases in the money stock -...