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Adoption of Financial Technologies: Implications for Money Demand and Monetary Policy

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Author Info
Casey B. Mulligan
Xavier Sala-i-Martin

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Abstract

In this paper we argue that the relevant decision for the majority of US households is not the fraction of assets to be held in interest bearing form, but whether to hold any of such assets at all (we call this `the decision to adopt' the financial technology). We show that the key variable governing the adoption decision is the product of the interest rate times the total amount of assets. The implication is that, instead of studying money demand using time series and looking at historical interest rate variations, we can look at a cross-section of households and analyze variations in the amount of assets held. We can use this methodology to estimate the interest elasticity of money demand at interest rates close to zero. We find that (a) the elasticity of money demand is very small when the interest rate is small, (b) the probability that a household holds any amount of interest bearing assets is positively related to the level of financial assets, and (c) the cost of adopting financial technologies is positively related to age and negatively related to the level of education. The finding that the elasticity is very small for interest rates below 5 percent suggests that the welfare costs of inflation are small. We also find that at interest rates of 6 percent, the elasticity is close to 0.5. We find that roughly one half of this elasticity can be attributed to the Baumol-Tobin or intensive margin and half of it can be attributed to the new adopters or extensive margin. The intensive margin is less important at lower interest rates and more important at higher interest rates.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5504.

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Date of creation: Mar 1996
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5504

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General
E41 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Demand for Money

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  1. Barro, Robert J, 1970. "Inflation, the Payments Period, and the Demand for Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(6), pages 1228-63, Nov.-Dec.. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Orazio Attanasio & Luigi Guiso & Tuillo Jappelli, 1998. "The Demand for Money, Financial Innovation, and the Welfare Cost of Inflation: An Analysis with Household Data," NBER Working Papers 6593, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Luisa Fuster, 1995. "Altruism, Uncertain Lifetime, and the Distribution of Wealth," Economics Working Papers 150, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
  3. Olympia Bover & Nadine Watson, 2000. "Are there Economies of Scale in the Demand for Money by Firms? some Panel Data Estimates," Banco de España Working Papers 0008, Banco de España. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Pippow Ingo & Schoder Detlef, 2002. "The Demand for Stored Value Payment Instruments," Microeconomics 0204002, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  5. Komárek Luboš & Melecký Martin, 2001. "Demand for Money in the Transition Economy : The Case of the Czech Republic 1993–2001," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 614, University of Warwick, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  6. José V. Rodríguez Mora, 1995. "Shared Knowledge," Economics Working Papers 144, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
  7. Cysne, Rubens Penha & Maldonado, Wilfredo L. & Monteiro, Paulo Klinger, 2004. "Inflation and Income Inequality: A Shopping-Time Aproach," Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 566, Graduate School of Economics, Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil). [Downloadable!]
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  8. Chris Crowe, 2004. "Inflation, Inequality and Social Conflict," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2004 69, Money Macro and Finance Research Group. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Fiorella de Fiore, 2000. "The optimal inflation tax when taxes are costly to collect," Working Paper Series 38, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  10. Komárek Luboš & Melecký Martin, 2001. "Currency Substitution in the Transition Economy : A Case of the Czech Republic 1993-2001," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 613, University of Warwick, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  11. Antonio Ciccone & Kiminori Matsuyama, 1995. "Start-up Costs and Pecuniary Externalities as Barriers to Economic Development," Economics Working Papers 142, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
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  12. Amable, Bruno & Chatelain, Jean-Bernard & De Bandt, Olivier, 1998. "Stability versus efficiency of the banking sector and economic growth," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 9811, CEPREMAP. [Downloadable!]
  13. Jean-Bernard Chatelain & Bruno Amable, 2001. "Can financial infrastructures foster economicdevelopment?," Post-Print halshs-00112551_v1, HAL. [Downloadable!]
  14. Nir Dagan, 1994. "Recontracting and Competition," Economics Working Papers 152, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 1996. [Downloadable!]
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  15. Sjaak Hurkens & Nir Vulkan, 1996. "Information Acquisition and Entry," Economics Working Papers 155, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
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  16. Casey B. Mulligan & Xavier X. Sala-i-Martin, 1997. "The Optimum Quantity of Money: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 5954, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Casey B. Mulligan, 1997. "The demand for money by firms: some additional empirical results," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 125, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  18. Alexander L. Wolman, 1997. "Zero inflation and the Friedman rule: a welfare comparison," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Fall, pages 1-21. [Downloadable!]
  19. Radhika Lahiri & Elisabetta Magnani, 2004. "On Skill Heterogeneity and Inflation," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 181, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology. [Downloadable!]
  20. Fiorella de Fiore & Pedro Teles, 2002. "The optimal mix of taxes on money, consumption and income," Working Paper Series 135, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
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  21. Daron Acemoglu & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 1996. "Agency Costs in the Process of Development," Economics Working Papers 157, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
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