WHY MONEY HAS A VITAL ROLE IN MONETARY POLICY MAKING
I
have always been impressed by the contribution of my compatriot, Jean Bodin, to our understanding of monetary economics. Drawing on his experience of the inflationary consequences of the influx of precious metals from the Americas into 16th-century Europe, Bodin postulated a direct relationship between the quantity of monetary gold and silver in circulation and the general price level. Thus was born the quantity theory of money, which has survived to this day.
Or has it? Over the next two days, the European Central Bank will host a conference to discuss the role of money in monetary policymaking. At present, the dominant academic view seems to be that monetary aggregates should have no part in monetary policy decisions. From this perspective, money does not deserve to be central to one of the two “pillars” of the ECB's monetary policy strategy. I do not share this view. In this I follow Friedrich Hayek, who wrote in The Pure Theory of Capital: “It is self-contradictory to discuss a process [inflation] which could not take place without money and at the same time to assume that money is absent or has no effect.”
Do not mistake me for a monetary Luddite: I have immense appreciation for the intellectual elegance and sophistication of modern monetary policy models that leave no room for money. In many respects, I fully agree with their implications regarding the benefits of price stability, the crucial importance of central bank credibility, the advantages of pursuing a clear and predictable policy and the centrality of private inflation expectations. Such considerations have governed my own thoughts on monetary policy since I was appointed governor of the Banque de France 13 years ago. These same considerations have also strongly influenced the design of the ECB's policy framework. Yet, I cannot dispel my doubts that a model of monetary policy that includes no role for money is incomplete in some important respects.
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Academic research is starting to address some of these shortcomings. By introducing financial markets, informational asymmetries and transaction costs into the benchmark model, money and credit developments are given a role in determining macroeconomic outcomes. Moreover, empirical literature has emerged suggesting that monetary developments may be associated with asset price dynamics.
More fundamentally, the European experience
