A Historical Retrieval of the Methods and Functions of Monetary Policy

There exists a broad implicit agreement that steering the monetary policy has important consequences for the whole economy (Friedman, 1968). This book uses topic classification to present a historical retrieval of the main theories and applications of the monetary policy within different schools of economic thinking and across history. From Humes’ automatic price-species flow in the 17th century, to the Keynesians, Monetarists and Austrians perspectives of the monetary dynamics in the beginning of the 19th century. The second chapter provides a general overview about how the monetary authority can fine tune monetary indicators in response to business cycle shocks. This part will discuss the monetary transmission mechanisms that represent the different means of interaction between monetary tools together and their impact on the real economy. In this context, the concept of inflation targeting will be elaborated in details while explaining its main institutional and economic prerequisites. The third and final chapter is devoted to giving an overview of the Egyptian monetary policy from 1990 to 2010 prior to the Egyptian revolution. The detailed analysis disaggregates this period into three eras: the first starts from 1991 till 1996 (ERSAP era), the second from 1996 till 2003 (Transitional era), and the third from 2003 till 2010 (towards Inflation Targeting era). This part of the book covers the broad changes occurred in the Egyptian monetary regimes and how well the successive governments used various monetary tools to achieve their policy goals and to mitigate real economic problems like unemployment and inflation.