Hat die Geldmenge ausgedient?

This article reconsiders the role of money in three dimensions of monetary policy: an empirical dimension concerning the link between money and macro-economic target variables, a theoretical dimension concerning the role of monetary aggregates in models of monetary policy, and a strategic dimension, concerning the use of monetary aggregate in the design and communication of monetary policy strategies. We review recent research and present empirical evidence for the euro area and other countries. We show that money growth is a reliable indicator of euro-area inflation in the medium and long run. In contrast, the usefulness of money to predict short-run inflation is small in times when inflation and money growth are both low and relatively stable. We show that, although the presentation of models of monetary macro-economics has changed, the role of money is still the same within these models. The strategic role of money changes over time: money moves to the foreground, when inflation is too high, and it stays in the background when inflation is low. Since there is little reason to believe that inflation will always be low in the euro area, we expect that money will regain importance in the ECB's monetary policy strategy sooner or later. Copyright Verein für Socialpolitik und Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2004