The optimum quantity of money revisited
Abstract
This paper uses a simple general equilibrium model in which agents use money holdings to self insure to address the classic question: What is the optimal rate of change of the money supply? The standard answer to this question, provided by Friedman, Bewley, Townsend, and others, is that this rate is negative. Because any revenues from seignorage in our model are redistributed in lump-sum form to agents and this redistribution improves insurance possibilities, we find that the optimal rate is sometimes positive. We also discuss the measurement of welfare gains or losses from inflation and their quantitative significance.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in its series Working Papers with number 404.Length:
Date of creation: 1990
Date of revision:
Publication status: Published in Economic analysis of markets and games: Essays in honor of Frank Hahn (1992, pp. 501-526)
Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmwp:404
Contact details of provider:
Postal: 90 Hennepin Avenue, P.O. Box 291, Minneapolis, MN 55480-0291
Phone: (612) 204-5000
Web page: http://minneapolisfed.org/
More information through EDIRC
Order Information:
Email:
Web: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/
Related research
Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Timothy J. Kehoe & David K. Levine & Michael Woodford, 1992. "The Optimum Quantity of Money Revisited," Levine's Working Paper Archive 2035, David K. Levine.
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- Cooley, T.F. & Hansen, G.D., 1988.
"The Inflation Tax In A Real Business Cycle Model,"
Papers
88-05, Rochester, Business - General.
- Cooley, Thomas F & Hansen, Gary D, 1989. "The Inflation Tax in a Real Business Cycle Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 733-48, September.
- Thomas F. Cooley & Gary D. Hansen, 1987. "The Inflation Tax in a Real Business Cycle Model," UCLA Economics Working Papers 496, UCLA Department of Economics.
- Cooley, T.F. & Hansen, G.D., 1988. "The Inflation Tax In A Real Business Cycle Model," RCER Working Papers 155, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
- Benhabib, Jess & Bull, Clive, 1981.
"The Optimal Quantity of Money: A Formal Treatment,"
Working Papers
81-11, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
- Benhabib, Jess & Bull, Clive, 1983. "The Optimal Quantity of Money: A Formal Treatment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 24(1), pages 101-11, February.
- Robert E. Lucas Jr. & Nancy L. Stokey, 1982.
"Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy in an Economy Without Capital,"
Discussion Papers
532, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
- Lucas, Robert Jr. & Stokey, Nancy L., 1983. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy without capital," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 55-93.
- Hahn, F H, 1971. "Professor Friedman's Views on Money," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 38(149), pages 61-80, February.
- Brock, William A, 1974. "Money and Growth: The Case of Long Run Perfect Foresight," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 15(3), pages 750-77, October.
- Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982.
"Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations,"
Econometrica,
Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-70, November.
- Finn E. Kydland & Edward C. Prescott, 1982. "Web interface for "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations"," QM&RBC Codes 4a, Quantitative Macroeconomics & Real Business Cycles.
- Finn E. Kydland & Edward C. Prescott, 1982. "Executable program for "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations"," QM&RBC Codes 4, Quantitative Macroeconomics & Real Business Cycles.
- Grandmont, Jean-Michel & Younes, Yves, 1973. "On the Efficiency of a Monetary Equilibrium," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 149-65, April.
- Scheinkman, Jose A & Weiss, Laurence, 1986. "Borrowing Constraints and Aggregate Economic Activity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(1), pages 23-45, January.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedmwp:404For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Diane Rosenberger).
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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

