Is Money Essential? An Experimental Approach

Essential interest-bearing money

In the quasi-linear model of Lagos and Wright [A unified framework for monetary theory and policy analysis, J. Polit. Econ. 113 (2005) 463—484], money is essential and—if lump-sum taxation is feasible—the Friedman rule implements the first-best allocation. In this paper, I impose the additional restriction of voluntary trade; so that (coercive) lump-sum taxation is infeasible. Despite this adde...

Money, happiness, and aspirations: An experimental study

The past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in the scientific study of happiness. Economists, in particular, find that happiness increases in income but decreases in income aspirations, and this work prompts examination of how aspirations form and adapt over time. This paper presents results from the first experimental study of how multiple factors—past payments, social comparisons, ...

Optimal fiscal and monetary policy when money is essential

We study optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an environment where explicit frictions give rise to valued money, making money essential in the sense that it expands the set of feasible trades. Our main results are in stark contrast to the prescriptions of earlier flexible-price Ramsey models. Two especially important findings emerge from our work: the Friedman Rule is typically not optimal and...

Does Money Matter? An Artificial Intelligence Approach

This paper provides the most complete evidence to date on the importance of monetary aggregates as a policy tool in an inflation forecasting experiment. Every possible definition of ‘money’ in the USA is being considered for the full data period (1960 – 2006), in addition to two different approaches to constructing the benchmark asset, using the most sophisticated non-linear artificial intellig...

Is There an Optimal Money Supply?: Discussion