IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/boe/qbullt/0128.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Money creation in the modern economy

Author

Listed:
  • McLeay, Michael

    (Bank of England)

  • Radia, Amar

    (Bank of England)

  • Thomas, Ryland

    (Bank of England)

Abstract

This article explains how the majority of money in the modern economy is created by commercial banks making loans. Money creation in practice differs from some popular misconceptions — banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them, and nor do they ‘multiply up’ central bank money to create new loans and deposits. The amount of money created in the economy ultimately depends on the monetary policy of the central bank. In normal times, this is carried out by setting interest rates. The central bank can also affect the amount of money directly through purchasing assets or ‘quantitative easing’.

Suggested Citation

  • McLeay, Michael & Radia, Amar & Thomas, Ryland, 2014. "Money creation in the modern economy," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 54(1), pages 14-27.
    • Handle: RePEc:boe:qbullt:0128
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf?la=en&hash=9A8788FD44A62D8BB927123544205CE476E01654
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tim Congdon, 1992. "Reflections On Monetarism," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 102.
    2. Mr. Manmohan Singh, 2013. "Collateral and Monetary Policy," IMF Working Papers 2013/186, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Clews, Roger & Salmon, Chris & Weeken, Olaf, 2010. "The Bank's money market framework," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 50(4), pages 292-301.
    4. Thomas I. Palley, 1996. "Post Keynesian Economics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-37412-6.
    5. Button, Richard & Pezzini, Silvia & Rossiter, Neil, 2010. "Understanding the price of new lending to households," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 50(3), pages 172-182.
    6. Bindseil, Ulrich, 2004. "The operational target of monetary policy and the rise and fall of reserve position doctrine," Working Paper Series 372, European Central Bank.
    7. Laidler, David, 1984. "The 'Buffer Stock' Notion in Monetary Economics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(376a), pages 17-34, Supplemen.
    8. Piti Disyatat, 2008. "Monetary policy implementation: Misconceptions and their consequences," BIS Working Papers 269, Bank for International Settlements.
    9. Tucker, Paul & Hall, Simon & Pattani, Aashish, 2013. "Macroprudential policy at the Bank of England," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 53(3), pages 192-200.
    10. Farag, Marc & Harland , Damian & Nixon, Dan, 2013. "Bank capital and liquidity," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 53(3), pages 201-215.
    11. Mr. Michael Kumhof & Mr. Jaromir Benes, 2012. "The Chicago Plan Revisited," IMF Working Papers 2012/202, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Butt, Nicholas & Domit, Silvia & McLeay, Michael & Thomas, Ryland & Kirkham, Lewis, 2012. "What can the money data tell us about the impact of QE?," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 52(4), pages 321-331.
    13. Carpenter, Seth & Demiralp, Selva, 2012. "Money, reserves, and the transmission of monetary policy: Does the money multiplier exist?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 59-75.
    14. Finn E. Kydland & Edward C. Prescott, 1990. "Business cycles: real facts and a monetary myth," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 14(Spr), pages 3-18.
    15. Joyce, Michael & Tong, Matthew & Woods, Robert, 2011. "The United Kingdom’s quantitative easing policy: design, operation and impact," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 51(3), pages 200-212.
    16. Kamath, Kishore & Reinold, Kate & Nielsen, Mette & Radia, Amar, 2011. "The financial position of British households: evidence from the 2011 NMG Consulting survey," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 51(4), pages 305-318.
    17. Ryland Thomas, 1997. "The Demand for M4: A Sectoral Analysis. Part 1 - The Personal Sector," Bank of England working papers 61, Bank of England.
    18. Jackson, Christopher & Sim , Mathew, 2013. "Recent developments in the sterling overnight money market," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 53(3), pages 223-233.
    19. Bridges, Jonathan & Thomas, Ryland, 2012. "The impact of QE on the UK economy – some supportive monetarist arithmetic," Bank of England working papers 442, Bank of England.
    20. Solomou, Solomos & Weale, Martin, 1991. "Balanced estimates of UK GDP 1870-1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 54-63, January.
    21. Bridges, Jonathan & Rossiter, Neil & Thomas, Ryland, 2011. "Understanding the recent weakness in broad money growth," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 51(1), pages 22-35.
    22. Christopher Bowdler & Amar Radia, 2012. "Unconventional monetary policy: the assessment," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 28(4), pages 603-621, WINTER.
    23. Ryland Thomas, 1997. "The Demand for M4: A Sectoral Analysis Part 2 The Corporate Sector," Bank of England working papers 62, Bank of England.
    24. Thomas, Ryland & Hills, Sally & Dimsdale, Nicholas, 2010. "The UK recession in context — what do three centuries of data tell us?," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 50(4), pages 277-291.
    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. Cloyne, James & Thomas, Ryland & Tuckett, Alex & Wills, Samuel, 2015. "A sectoral framework for analyzing money, credit and unconventional monetary policy," Bank of England working papers 556, Bank of England.
    2. James Cloyne & Ryland Thomas & Alex Tuckett & Samuel Wills, 2015. "An Empirical Sectoral Model of Unconventional Monetary Policy: The Impact of QE," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83, pages 51-82, September.
    3. Butt, Nicholas & Domit, Silvia & McLeay, Michael & Thomas, Ryland & Kirkham, Lewis, 2012. "What can the money data tell us about the impact of QE?," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 52(4), pages 321-331.
    4. Shakir, Tamarah & Tong, Matthew, 2014. "The interaction of the FPC and the MPC," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 54(4), pages 396-408.
    5. Butt, Nick & Pugh, Alice, 2014. "Credit spreads: capturing credit conditions facing households and firms," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 54(2), pages 137-148.
    6. Seghezza, Elena & Morelli, Pierluigi, 2020. "Why the money multiplier has remained persistently so low in the post-crisis United States?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 309-317.
    7. Churm, Rohan & Joyce, Michael & Kapetanios, George & Theodoridis, Konstantinos, 2021. "Unconventional monetary policies and the macroeconomy: The impact of the UK's QE2 and funding for lending scheme," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 721-736.
    8. Chowla, Shiv & Quaglietti, Lucia & Rachel, Lukasz, 2014. "How have world shocks affected the UK economy?," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 54(2), pages 167-179.
    9. Bridges, Jonathan & Thomas, Ryland, 2012. "The impact of QE on the UK economy – some supportive monetarist arithmetic," Bank of England working papers 442, Bank of England.
    10. Christopher Bowdler & Amar Radia, 2012. "Unconventional monetary policy: the assessment," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 28(4), pages 603-621, WINTER.
    11. Butt, Nick & Churm, Rohan & McMahon, Michael & Morotz, Arpad & Schanz, Jochen, 2014. "QE and the bank lending channel in the United Kingdom," Bank of England working papers 511, Bank of England.
    12. Giansante, Simone & Fatouh, Mahmoud & Ongena, Steven, 2022. "The asset reallocation channel of quantitative easing. The case of the UK," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Campiglio, Emanuele, 2016. "Beyond carbon pricing: The role of banking and monetary policy in financing the transition to a low-carbon economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 220-230.
    14. van Eeghen, Piet-Hein, 2021. "Funding money-creating banks: Cash funding, balance sheet funding and the moral hazard of currency elasticity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    15. Harimohan, Rashmi & Nelson, Benjamin, 2014. "How might macroprudential capital policy affect credit conditions?," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 54(3), pages 287-303.
    16. Mr. Marco Gross & Christoph Siebenbrunner, 2019. "Money Creation in Fiat and Digital Currency Systems," IMF Working Papers 2019/285, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Bell, Venetia & Butt, Nick & Talbot, James, 2013. "The Bank of England Bank Liabilities Survey," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 53(1), pages 68-76.
    18. Churm, Rohan & Radia, Amar & Leake, Jeremy & Srinivasan, Sylaja & Whisker, Rishard, 2012. "The Funding for Lending Scheme," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 52(4), pages 306-320.
    19. Kavanagh, Ella & Zhu, Sheng & O’Sullivan, Niall, 2022. "Monetary policy, trade-offs and the transmission of UK Monetary Policy," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(6), pages 1128-1147.
    20. Bailey, Andrew & Bridges, Jonathan & Harrison, Richard & Jones, Josh & Mankodi, Aakash, 2020. "The central bank balance sheet as a policy tool: past, present and future," Bank of England working papers 899, Bank of England.

    More about this item

    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:boe:qbullt:0128. 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: Publications Group (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boegvuk.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.