IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jmacro/v63y2020ics0164070419300539.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Money demand and seignorage maximization before the end of the Zimbabwean dollar

Author

Listed:
  • Miller, Stephen Matteo
  • Ndhlela, Thandinkosi

Abstract

The delayed end to Zimbabwe's hyperinflation in 2009 gave rise to an official dollarization. Before then, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) operated on the correct side of the inflation tax Laffer curve. Estimated seignorage maximizing rates derive from Bayesian, time-varying parameter, structural vector autoregressions. Monthly changes in the ratio of prices for the Old Mutual insurance company's shares, which trade in London and Harare, serve as the measure of inflation from 1999 to 2008. Orthogonalized impulse response functions indicate that monthly seignorage maximizing rates ranged from 242% to 315% and exceeded all monthly inflation rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Miller, Stephen Matteo & Ndhlela, Thandinkosi, 2020. "Money demand and seignorage maximization before the end of the Zimbabwean dollar," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:63:y:2020:i:c:s0164070419300539
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmacro.2019.103186
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164070419300539
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmacro.2019.103186?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stanley Fischer & Ratna Sahay & Carlos A. Végh, 2002. "Modern Hyper- and High Inflations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 837-880, September.
    2. Frenkel, Jacob A, 1976. " A Monetary Approach to the Exchange Rate: Doctrinal Aspects and Empirical Evidence," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 78(2), pages 200-224.
    3. Peter Bernholz, 2003. "Monetary Regimes and Inflation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2873.
    4. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2004. "The Modern History of Exchange Rate Arrangements: A Reinterpretation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 1-48.
    5. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    6. Taylor, Mark P, 1991. "The Hyperinflation Model of Money Demand Revisited," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 327-351, August.
    7. Junsoo Lee & Mark C. Strazicich, 2013. "Minimum LM unit root test with one structural break," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 2483-2492.
    8. Thomas J. Sargent, 1982. "The Ends of Four Big Inflations," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation: Causes and Effects, pages 41-98, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Barro, Robert J, 1972. "Inflationary Finance and the Welfare Cost of Inflation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(5), pages 978-1001, Sept.-Oct.
    10. Salemi, Michael K & Sargent, Thomas J, 1979. "The Demand for Money during Hyperinflation under Rational Expectations: II," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 20(3), pages 741-758, October.
    11. Sargent, Thomas J & Wallace, Neil, 1973. "Rational Expectations and the Dynamics of Hyperinflation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(2), pages 328-350, June.
    12. Junsoo Lee & Mark C. Strazicich, 2003. "Minimum Lagrange Multiplier Unit Root Test with Two Structural Breaks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1082-1089, November.
    13. Cavallo, Alberto, 2013. "Online and official price indexes: Measuring Argentina's inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 152-165.
    14. Miller, Stephen Matteo, 2016. "When and why hyperinflating monetary authorities abandon a currency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 11-14.
    15. Sargent, Thomas J & Velde, Francois R, 1995. "Macroeconomic Features of the French Revolution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 474-518, June.
    16. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    17. Whitney K. Newey & Kenneth D. West, 1994. "Automatic Lag Selection in Covariance Matrix Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(4), pages 631-653.
    18. Engsted, Tom, 1996. "The monetary model of the exchange rate under hyperinflation: New encouraging evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 37-44, April.
    19. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39, pages 137-137.
    20. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922.
    21. White, Eugene Nelson, 1995. "The French Revolution and the Politics of Government Finance, 1770–1815," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 227-255, June.
    22. Aisen, Ari & Veiga, Francisco José, 2008. "The political economy of seigniorage," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 29-50, August.
    23. Khan, Mohsin S, 1980. "Dynamic Stability in the Cagan Model of Hyperinflation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 21(3), pages 577-582, October.
    24. Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2005. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 821-852.
    25. Michael, P & Nobay, A R & Peel, D A, 1994. "The German Hyperinflation and the Demand for Money Revisited," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 35(1), pages 1-22, February.
    26. Clague, Christopher & Keefer, Philip & Knack, Stephen & Olson, Mancur, 1999. "Contract Intensive Money," MPRA Paper 25717, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    27. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    28. Marco Del Negro & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2015. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy: A Corrigendum," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(4), pages 1342-1345.
    29. Cukierman, Alex & Edwards, Sebastian & Tabellini, Guido, 1992. "Seigniorage and Political Instability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 537-555, June.
    30. Quentin Stoeffler & Jeffrey Alwang & Bradford Mills & Nelson Taruvinga, 2016. "Multidimensional Poverty in Crisis: Lessons from Zimbabwe," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(3), pages 428-446, March.
    31. Steve H. Hanke and Alex K. F. Kwok, 2009. "On the Measurement of Zimbabwe’s Hyperinflation," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 29(2), pages 353-364, Winter.
    32. Mr. Stanley Fischer & Ms. Ratna Sahay & Mr. Carlos A. Végh Gramont, 2002. "Modern Hyper- and High Inflations," IMF Working Papers 2002/197, International Monetary Fund.
    33. Clague, Christopher & Keefer, Philip & Knack, Stephen & Olson, Mancur, 1999. "Contract-Intensive Money: Contract Enforcement, Property Rights, and Economic Performance," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 185-211, June.
    34. Ms. Sònia Muñoz, 2007. "Central Bank Quasi-Fiscal Losses and High Inflation in Zimbabwe: A Note," IMF Working Papers 2007/098, International Monetary Fund.
    35. Petrovic, Pavle & Mladenovic, Zorica, 2000. "Money Demand and Exchange Rate Determination under Hyperinflation: Conceptual Issues and Evidence from Yugoslavia," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(4), pages 785-806, November.
    36. Paldam, Martin, 1994. "The political economy of stopping high inflation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 135-168, May.
    37. Jose Saboin, 2018. "The Modern Hyperinflation Cycle: Some New Empirical Regularities," IMF Working Papers 2018/266, International Monetary Fund.
    38. Mladenovic, Zorica & Petrovic, Pavle, 2010. "Cagan's paradox and money demand in hyperinflation: Revisited at daily frequency," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 1369-1384, November.
    39. Tara McIndoe-Calder, 2018. "Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe: money demand, seigniorage and aid shocks," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(15), pages 1659-1675, March.
    40. Robert E. Hall, 1982. "Inflation: Causes and Effects," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number hall82-1, March.
    41. Brennan, Geoffrey & Buchanan, James, 1981. "Revenue Implications of Money Creation under Leviathan," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 347-351, May.
    42. Salemi, Michael K., 1979. "Adaptive expectations, rational expectations, and money demand in hyperinflation Germany," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 593-604, October.
    43. Terrence Kairiza, 2009. "Unbundling Zimbabwe’s journey to hyperinflation and official dollarization," GRIPS Discussion Papers 09-12, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    44. Catherine Larochelle & Jeffrey Alwang & Nelson Taruvinga, 2014. "Inter-temporal Changes in Well-being During Conditions of Hyperinflation: Evidence from Zimbabwe," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 23(2), pages 225-256.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cutsinger, Bryan P. & Rouanet, Louis & Ingber, Joshua S., 2023. "Assignats or death: The politics and dynamics of hyperinflation in revolutionary France," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cutsinger, Bryan P. & Rouanet, Louis & Ingber, Joshua S., 2023. "Assignats or death: The politics and dynamics of hyperinflation in revolutionary France," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    2. Giovanni B. Pittaluga & Elena Seghezza & Pierluigi Morelli, 2021. "The political economy of hyperinflation in Venezuela," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 337-350, March.
    3. Luca Benati, 2018. "Cagan s Paradox Revisited," Diskussionsschriften dp1826, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    4. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    5. Peter Bernholz & Peter Kugler, 2009. "The Success of Currency Reforms to End Great Inflations: An Empirical Analysis of 34 High Inflations," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 10(2), pages 165-175, May.
    6. Mladenovic, Zorica & Petrovic, Pavle, 2010. "Cagan's paradox and money demand in hyperinflation: Revisited at daily frequency," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 1369-1384, November.
    7. Zorica Mladenovic & Bent Nielsen, 2009. "The role of income in money demand during hyper-inflation: the case of Yugoslavia," Economics Papers 2009-W02, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    8. Bordo, Michael D., 1986. "Explorations in monetary history: A survey of the literature," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 339-415, October.
    9. Emilio Ocampo, 2021. "A Brief History of Hyperinflation in Argentina," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 787, Universidad del CEMA.
    10. Harashima, Taiji, 2007. "Hyperinflation, disinflation, deflation, etc.: A unified and micro-founded explanation for inflation," MPRA Paper 3836, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Carsten Hefeker, 2010. "Taxation, corruption and the exchange rate regime," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 338-346, March.
    12. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Kontonikas, Alexandros, 2009. "The Euro and inflation uncertainty in the European Monetary Union," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 954-971, October.
    13. Topal, yavuz Han, 2013. "On the tracks of Zimbabwe’s Hyperinflation: A Quantitative Investigation," MPRA Paper 56117, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Martin B. Schmidt, 2021. "On the evolution of athlete anthropometric measurements: racial integration, expansion, and steroids," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(6), pages 3419-3443, December.
    15. Arghyrou, Michael G. & Gadea, Maria Dolores, 2012. "The single monetary policy and domestic macro-fundamentals: Evidence from Spain," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 16-34.
    16. Carlos De Resende, 2007. "Cross-Country Estimates of the Degree of Fiscal Dominance and Central Bank Independence," Staff Working Papers 07-36, Bank of Canada.
    17. Brian M. Mills & Steven Salaga, 2015. "Historical Time Series Perspectives on Competitive Balance in NCAA Division I Basketball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(6), pages 614-646, August.
    18. Maslyuk, Svetlana & Smyth, Russell, 2008. "Unit root properties of crude oil spot and futures prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 2591-2600, July.
    19. Dimitris Georgoutsos & George Kouretas, 2000. "A Multivariate I(2) Cointegration Analysis Of German Hyperinflation," Working Papers 0001, University of Crete, Department of Economics, revised 00 Jul 2001.
    20. Nielsen, Bent, 2008. "On the Explosive Nature of Hyper-Inflation Data," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-29.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cagan's Paradox; Hyperinflation; Money demand; Seignorage maximization; Bayesian time varying parameter structural vector autoregressions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E41 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Demand for Money
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:63:y:2020:i:c:s0164070419300539. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622617 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.