IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedlwp/88394.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hot Money for a Cold Economy

Author

Listed:
  • David Andolfatto

Abstract

What is the theoretical justification for taxing unspent money transfers in a recession? To examine this question, I study a model economy where fiat money is necessary as a medium of exchange and, incidentally, serves as a store of value. This latter property is shown to open the door to business cycles and depressions driven entirely by speculation. Unconditional money transfers do not guarantee escape from a psychologically-induced depression. I demonstrate how money transfers subject to a short expiration date do eliminate speculative equilibria. This hot money policy compares favorably to negative interest rate policy because the latter taxes all money savings whereas the former only threatens to tax gifted money.

Suggested Citation

  • David Andolfatto, 2020. "Hot Money for a Cold Economy," Working Papers 2020-019, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:88394
    DOI: 10.20955/wp.2020.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2020/2020-019.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.20955/wp.2020.019?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jones, Robert A, 1976. "The Origin and Development of Media of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 757-775, August.
    2. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    3. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & John Moore, 2002. "Evil Is the Root of All Money," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 62-66, May.
    4. Cass, David & Shell, Karl, 1983. "Do Sunspots Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 193-227, April.
    5. Bruce A. Champ, 2008. "Stamp scrip: money people paid to use," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Apr.
    6. Townsend, Robert M, 1987. "Economic Organization with Limited Communication," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 954-971, December.
    7. John Bryant, 2005. "Fiat Money and Coordination: A "Perverse" Coexistence of Private Notes and Fiat Money," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 377-381, Summer.
    8. Farmer Roger E. A. & Guo Jang-Ting, 1994. "Real Business Cycles and the Animal Spirits Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 42-72, June.
    9. Kamhon Kan & Shin-Kun Peng & Ping Wang, 2017. "Understanding Consumption Behavior: Evidence from Consumers' Reaction to Shopping Vouchers," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 137-153, February.
    10. Hsieh, Chang-Tai & Shimizutani, Satoshi & Hori, Masahiro, 2010. "Did Japan's shopping coupon program increase spending?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(7-8), pages 523-529, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Christiano, Lawrence J. & G. Harrison, Sharon, 1999. "Chaos, sunspots and automatic stabilizers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 3-31, August.
    2. Williamson, Stephen & Wright, Randall, 2010. "New Monetarist Economics: Models," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 2, pages 25-96, Elsevier.
    3. Jenny Chan, 2020. "Monetary Policy and Sentiment-Driven Fluctuations," Discussion Papers 2020, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    4. Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2007. "Incomplete information and self-fulfilling prophecies," Working Papers 2007-033, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    5. Roger E. A. Farmer, 1996. "A theory of business cycles," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 91-109, Autumn.
    6. Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2007. "Endogenous volatility, endogenous growth, and large welfare gains from stabilization policies," Working Papers 2006-032, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    7. Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2006. "Imperfect competition and sunspots," Working Papers 2006-015, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    8. Kazuo Mino, 2017. "Sunspot-Driven Business Cycles: An Overview," KIER Working Papers 973, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    9. Stephen D. Williamson & Randall Wright, 2010. "New monetarist economics: methods," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 92(May), pages 265-302.
    10. Harrison, Sharon G., 2001. "Indeterminacy in a model with sector-specific externalities," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 747-764, May.
    11. Guo, Jang-Ting & Lansing, Kevin J., 1998. "Indeterminacy and Stabilization Policy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 481-490, October.
    12. Di Bella, Gabriel & Grigoli, Francesco, 2019. "Optimism, pessimism, and short-term fluctuations," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 79-96.
    13. Farmer, Roger E. A. & Jang-Ting, Guo, 1995. "The econometrics of indeterminacy: an applied study," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 225-271, December.
    14. Greg Kaplan & Guido Menzio, 2016. "Shopping Externalities and Self-Fulfilling Unemployment Fluctuations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(3), pages 771-825.
    15. Frédéric Dufourt & Kazuo Nishimura & Alain Venditti, 2022. "Expectations, self-fulfilling prophecies and the business cycle," Working Papers hal-03923946, HAL.
    16. Kamihigashi, Takashi, 1999. "Chaotic dynamics in quasi-static systems: theory and applications1," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 183-214, March.
    17. Francesco Bianchi & Giovanni Nicolò, 2021. "A generalized approach to indeterminacy in linear rational expectations models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(3), pages 843-868, July.
    18. Jaimovich, Nir, 2007. "Firm dynamics and markup variations: Implications for sunspot equilibria and endogenous economic fluctuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 300-325, November.
    19. Acharya, Sushant & Benhabib, Jess & Huo, Zhen, 2021. "The anatomy of sentiment-driven fluctuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    20. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2015. "The Evolution of Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14611.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Money; hoarding; depression; sunspot equilibria;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B1 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925
    • B2 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedlwp:88394. 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: Anna Oates (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.html .

    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.