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Monetary Policy without Money: Hamlet without the Ghost

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Abstract

Today's standard model of monetary policy has aggregate demand responding directly to an interest rate under the central bank's control, and ignores the role played by the quantity of money in the transmission mechanism. Even though monetary policy is usually aimed at controlling price level behaviour, and the price level is appropriately modelled as being determined by the interaction of the supply and demand for money, it is going too far to characterise this standard model as "Hamlet without the prince". Canadian experience shows that the current framework has worked too well, and its predecessor, based on money growth targeting, worked too badly for this to be fair. Nevertheless, inflation is a monetary phenomenon, and monetary aggregates continue to have useful leading indicator properties. These facts, among others, suggest that a theory of monetary policy which pays explicit attention to the money supply permits a coherent understanding of monetary policy issues. The neglect of money by current approaches leads to a fragmented analysis of monetary policy, just as the omission of the Ghost's demand for vengeance from a production of Hamlet would undermine the play's coherence.

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  • David Laidler, 2003. "Monetary Policy without Money: Hamlet without the Ghost," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 20037, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwo:uwowop:20037
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    Cited by:

    1. Thornton, Daniel L., 2014. "Monetary policy: Why money matters (and interest rates don’t)," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 202-213.
    2. David Laidler, 2007. "Successes and Failures of Monetary Policy Since the 1950s," University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute Working Papers 20072, University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute.
    3. Michael Bordo & Anna J. Schwartz, 2010. "David Laidler on Monetarism," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Robert Leeson (ed.), David Laidler’s Contributions to Economics, chapter 3, pages 44-59, Palgrave Macmillan.
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    5. Gentisa Furxhi & Sonela Stillo & Marinela Teneqexhi, 2016. "Organizational Change: Employees Reaction Towards It," European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 1, ejms_v1_i.
    6. Tim Congdon, 2021. "Can central banks run out of ammunition? The role of the money‐equities‐interaction channel in monetary policy," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 21-37, February.
    7. Maldonado, Leonardo, 2009. "Determinantes de la demanda de dinero de largo plazo. Una estimación dinámica con series de tiempo mensual para Venezuela (1986-2007) [Long-run determinants of the demand for money. A dynamic est," MPRA Paper 88698, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Walter, Timo & Wansleben, Leon, 2018. "How Central Bankers Learned to Love Financialization: The Fed, the Bank, and the Enlisting of Unfettered Markets in the Conduct of Monetary Policy," OSF Preprints gzyp6, Center for Open Science.

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