Although the role of gold in the world economy has declined since the gold standard was abandoned, it remains important as a central bank reserve, a hedge against risks, a barometer of geopolitical uncertainty, and an input for jewellery. While portfolio demand for gold has been well studied,...

In this paper we introduce a class of tentatively plausible, fixed-coefficient models of money demand and evaluate their forecast performance. When these models are re-estimated allowing all coefficients to vary over time, the forecasting performance improves dramatically. Aside from offering...

Among the many troublesome econometric relationships, the demand for money has proved especially recalcitrant, as evidenced by a long history of tinkering with basic specifications, always in response to some recent perceived forecast failure. The shortcomings of this approach and an alternative...

This paper investigates the effects of stock market wealth on consumer spending. Traditional macroeconometric models estimate that a dollar's increase in stock market wealth boosts consumer spending by 3-7 cents per year. With the substantial 1990s rise in stock prices, the nature and magnitude...