The author re-examines the demand-for-money theory in an intertemporal optimization model. The demand for real money balances is derived to be a function of real income and the rates of return of all financial assets traded in the economy. Unlike the traditional money-demand relation, however, where the elasticities are assumed to be constant, the coefficients of the explanatory variables are not constant and depend on the degree of an agent’s risk aversion, the volatilities of the price level and income, and the correlation of asset returns. The author shows that the response of households to increased volatilities in the financial markets, economic activity, and prices cannot be predicted, because a rise in general uncertainties has an ambiguous impact on the demand for money. This suggests that increased uncertainty is not very helpful for the planning decisions of households, because the optimal level of money holdings in the period of uncertainty cannot be ascertained.
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Paper provided by Bank of Canada in its series Working Papers with number
04-7.
Find related papers by JEL classification: E41 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Demand for Money E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Akerlof, George A & Milbourne, Ross D, 1980.
"The Short Run Demand for Money,"
Economic Journal,
Royal Economic Society, vol. 90(363), pages 885-900, December.
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