We examine the behavior of money, inflation, and output under fiat and commodity standards to better understand how changes in monetary policy affect economic activity. Using long-term historical data for 15 countries, we find that, under fiat standards, the growth rates of various monetary...

According to the logic of the Friedman rule, the opportunity cost of holding money faced by private agents should equal the social cost of creating additional fiat money. Thus nominal rates of interest should be zero. This logic has been shown to be correct in a number of contexts, with and...