Irrungen und Wirrungen im Umfeld der Geldtheorie: Wohin einseitige Darstellungen der Zentralbanken führen[Aberrations and confusions of the theory of money: Where ambiguous formulations lead to]

This article is the long-version of a discussion paper published on „Ökonomenstimme“ at June-15-2017. Both papers defend essential parts of the macro-economic theory of the modern banking system. The discussion was triggered by Dirk Ehnts who argued that bank deposits are created out of nothing. According to his view, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank (including the Deutsche Bundesbank) are about to revise the macro-economic theory of money. In this article it is shown that Ehnt’s position cannot be based on publications recently made by those central banks. The banking authorities reject the deterministic interpretation of the money-multiplier theory. Their criticism is based on the fact that the multiplier proves empirically not to be a constant parameter. Without this acceptable critique and not regarding a few misleading formulations, the authors of the central banks’ publications cling to the modern theory of money in all remaining aspects.