IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3686.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monetary Economics: A Review Essay

Author

Listed:
  • Herschel I. Grossman

Abstract

In this essay I define money to be whatever objects serve as generally acceptable media of exchange and I define monetary economics to be the study of the causes and economic consequences of the monetization of exchange -- that is, of the use of media of exchange. These definitions lead me to specify the distinctive objectives of monetary economics to be to understand (1) the monetization of exchange and its relation to the technologies of production and of exchange, (2) the form that money takes and, especially, the viability of fiat money, (3) the determination and significance of the real value of units of money, and (4) the relation between the nominal quantity of money and aggregate economic activity. The essay tries to acquaint the reader with the contents of the recently published "Handbook of Monetary Economic" as they relate to these objectives of monetary economics and offer some critical thoughts on selected unsettled issues in monetary economics that my reading of the "Handbook" suggested.

Suggested Citation

  • Herschel I. Grossman, 1991. "Monetary Economics: A Review Essay," NBER Working Papers 3686, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3686
    Note: ME EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3686.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Casella, Alessandra, 1989. "Testing for rational bubbles with exogenous or endogenous fundamentals : The German hyperinflation once more," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 109-122, July.
    2. Townsend, Robert M, 1989. "Currency and Credit in a Private Information Economy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1323-1344, December.
    3. Peter Garber & Steven Weisbrod, 1990. "Banks in the Market for Liquidity," NBER Working Papers 3381, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Diba, Behzad T. & Grossman, Herschel I., 1988. "Rational inflationary bubbles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 35-46, January.
    5. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Oh, Seonghwan, 1995. "When and how much to talk credibility and flexibility in monetary policy with private information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 341-357, April.
    6. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1991. "A contribution to the pure theory of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 215-235, April.
    7. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-954, August.
    8. Woodford, Michael, 1994. "Monetary Policy and Price Level Determinacy in a Cash-in-Advance Economy," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(3), pages 345-380.
    9. David Starrett, 1976. "Social Institutions, Imperfect Information, and the Distribution of Income," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(2), pages 261-284.
    10. Rogoff, Kenneth, 1987. "Reputational constraints on monetary policy," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 141-181, January.
    11. Obstfeld, Maurice & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Speculative Hyperinflations in Maximizing Models: Can We Rule Them Out?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 675-687, August.
    12. Grossman, Herschel I, 1990. "Inflation and Reputation with Generic Policy Preferences," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 22(2), pages 165-177, May.
    13. Jones, Robert A, 1976. "The Origin and Development of Media of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 757-775, August.
    14. Herschel I. Grossman, 1986. "Rationalité, monnaie et activité," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 15(1), pages 207-216.
    15. Kenneth Arrow, 1971. "The Theory of Discrimination," Working Papers 403, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    16. Ross M. Starr, 1972. "The Structure of Exchange in Barter and Monetary Economies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 86(2), pages 290-302.
    17. Ostroy, Joseph M & Starr, Ross M, 1974. "Money and the Decentralization of Exchange," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(6), pages 1093-1113, November.
    18. Cass, David & Shell, Karl, 1983. "Do Sunspots Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 193-227, April.
    19. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I., 1986. "Money as the mechanism of exchange," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 93-115, January.
    20. Ostroy, Joseph M, 1973. "The Informational Efficiency of Monetary Exchange," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(4), pages 597-610, September.
    21. Kurz, Mordecai, 1974. "Equilibrium with transaction cost and money in a single market exchange economy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 418-452, April.
    22. Frank Hahn, 1973. "On Transaction Costs, Inessential Sequence Economies and Money," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 40(4), pages 449-461.
    23. Grossman, Herschel I., 1983. "The natural-rate hypothesis, the rational-expectations hypothesis, and the remarkable survival of non-market-clearing assumptions," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 225-245, January.
    24. Bernheim, B Douglas & Shleifer, Andrei & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "The Strategic Bequest Motive," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 151-182, July.
    25. Oh, Seonghwan, 1989. "A theory of a generally acceptable medium of exchange and barter," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 101-119, January.
    26. William A. Brock, 1982. "Asset Prices in a Production Economy," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Information and Uncertainty, pages 1-46, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Maskin, Eric & Tirole, Jean, 1987. "Correlated equilibria and sunspots," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 364-373, December.
    28. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1978. "Optimal seigniorage from money creation : An analysis in terms of the optimum balance of payments deficit problem," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 503-517, August.
    29. Hamilton, James D. & Whiteman, Charles H., 1985. "The observable implications of self-fulfilling expectations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 353-373, November.
    30. Stein, Jeremy C, 1989. "Cheap Talk and the Fed: A Theory of Imprecise Policy Announcements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 32-42, March.
    31. Herschel Grossman & Warren Trepeta, 1981. "Risk Shifting, Statistical Discrimination, and the Stability of Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in Labor Markets, pages 295-318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. Gordon, Robert J, 1990. "What Is New-Keynesian Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 1115-1171, September.
    33. Oliver Hart, 1982. "A Model of Imperfect Competition with Keynesian Features," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(1), pages 109-138.
    34. Grossman, Herschel I. & Van Huyck, John B., 1986. "Seigniorage, inflation, and reputation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 21-31, July.
    35. O'Connell, Stephen A & Zeldes, Stephen P, 1988. "Rational Ponzi Games," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 29(3), pages 431-450, August.
    36. Gray, Jo Anna, 1984. "Dynamic Instability in Rational Expectations Models: An Attempt to Clarify," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 25(1), pages 93-122, February.
    37. Costas Azariadis & Roger Guesnerie, 1986. "Sunspots and Cycles," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(5), pages 725-737.
    38. Bennett T. McCallum, 1986. "The Optimal Inflation Rate in an Overlapping-Generations Economy with Land," NBER Working Papers 1892, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. Tirole, Jean, 1985. "Asset Bubbles and Overlapping Generations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1499-1528, November.
    40. Flood, Robert P & Garber, Peter M, 1980. "Market Fundamentals versus Price-Level Bubbles: The First Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(4), pages 745-770, August.
    41. Alesina, Alberto & Tabellini, Guido, 1988. "Credibility and politics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2-3), pages 542-550, March.
    42. Hamilton, James D, 1986. "On Testing for Self-fulfilling Speculative Price Bubbles," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(3), pages 545-552, October.
    43. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    44. Herschel I. Grossman, 1988. "The Political Economy of War Debts and Inflation," NBER Working Papers 2743, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dwight R. Lee, 2001. "The Internet, the Market, and Communication: Don't Ignore the Shoe While Admiring the Shine," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 20(3), Fall.
    2. van Ees, Hans & Garretsen, Harry, 1995. "Existence and stability of conventions and institutions in a monetary economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 275-288, October.
    3. Hadj Fraj, Salma & Hamdaoui, Mekki & Maktouf, Samir, 2018. "Governance and economic growth: The role of the exchange rate regime," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 326-364.
    4. Lennart Ante, 2020. "A place next to Satoshi: foundations of blockchain and cryptocurrency research in business and economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1305-1333, August.
    5. George Selgin, 2003. "Adaptive Learning and the Transition to Fiat Money," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 147-165, January.

    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. Engsted, Tom, 1998. "Money Demand During Hyperinflation: Cointegration, Rational Expectations, and the Importance of Money Demand Shocks," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 533-552, July.
    2. Bewley, Truman, 1983. "A Difficulty with the Optimum Quantity of Money," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1485-1504, September.
    3. Robert P. Flood & Robert J. Hodrick, 1989. "Testable Implications of Indeterminacies in Models with Rational Expectations," NBER Working Papers 2903, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Ross M. Starr, 2012. "Why is there Money?," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13763.
    5. Behzad T. Diba & Herschel I. Grossman, 1986. "On the Inception of Rational Bubbles in Stock Prices," NBER Working Papers 1990, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Michener, Ronald & Ravikumar, B., 1998. "Chaotic dynamics in a cash-in-advance economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 22(7), pages 1117-1137, May.
    7. Giuseppe Mastromatteo & Luigi Ventura, 2007. "The origin of money: A survey of the contemporary literature," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 54(2), pages 195-224, June.
    8. Topal, yavuz Han, 2013. "On the tracks of Zimbabwe’s Hyperinflation: A Quantitative Investigation," MPRA Paper 56117, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Qin Xiao & Gee Kwang Randolph Tan, 2007. "Signal Extraction with Kalman Filter: A Study of the Hong Kong Property Price Bubbles," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(4), pages 865-888, April.
    10. Costas Lapavitsas, 2003. "Money As €˜Universal Equivalent’ And Its Origin In Commodity Exchange," Working Papers 130, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    11. Piersanti, Giovanni, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Theory of Exchange Rate Crises," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199653126.
    12. Phillip M Johnson, 2002. "Essays on Capital Markets: Frictions and Social Forces," Levine's Working Paper Archive 618897000000000052, David K. Levine.
    13. Costas Lapavitsas, 2005. "The Emergence of Money in Commodity Exchange, or Money as Monopolist of the Ability to Buy," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 549-569.
    14. Iwai, Katsuhito, 1996. "The bootstrap theory of money: A search-theoretic foundation of monetary economics," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 451-477, December.
    15. Cesarano, Filippo, 1995. "The New Monetary Economics and the theory of money," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 445-455, May.
    16. David Bowman, 1995. "Constrained suboptimality in economies with limited communication," International Finance Discussion Papers 497, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Maurice Obstfeld, 1989. "Dynamic Seigniorage Theory: An Exploration," NBER Working Papers 2869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Starr, Ross M., 2002. "Existence of Uniqueness of "Money" in General Equilibrium: Natural Monopoly in the Most Liquid Asset," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt660465rm, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    19. Starr, Ross M., 2003. "Monetary general equilibrium with transaction costs," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 335-354, June.
    20. Rajeev, Meenakshi, 2012. "Search cost, trading strategies and optimal market structure," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 1757-1765.

    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:nbr:nberwo:3686. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.