Measuring the Quality of Money

Abstract: This article explains the theoretical importance of the quality of money as a factor of the demand for money and develops the composite indicator that measures the quality of money for the eurozone. The demand for money, i.e., the amount of money people keep in their balances, besides other well-known factors (e.g., interest rate, price level, and income) depends on how people subjectively perceive a particular money’s ability to serve its main functions: a medium of exchange, a store of value, and the unit of account.

Measuring the Quality of Money

Abstract: This article explains the theoretical importance of the quality of money as a factor of the demand for money and develops the composite indicator that measures the quality of money for the eurozone. The demand for money, i.e., the amount of money people keep in their balances, besides other well-known factors (e.g., interest rate, price level, and income) depends on how people subjectively perceive a particular money’s ability to serve its main functions: a medium of exchange, a store of value, and the unit of account.

The Unlikely Story of American Regulatory Socialism

Abstract: The conventional wisdom has it that US Democrats and those on the American left support incremental steps in the direction of socialism, if not an all-out endorsement of the concept. However, in at least one area—regulation—Republicans and the American political right have also, albeit unwittingly, spread the seeds of socialism not just in Washington, DC, but all across the world.

James Broughel (jbroughel@mercatus.gmu.edu) is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason Univer

The Illusions of Inflation Targeting, with an Application to Ukraine

Abstract: This article reviews the analytical justification, the theoretical content, and the practical experience of inflation targeting, which has become the standard framework for monetary policy. It shows that due to the inflation-targeting literature’s neglect for the money demand as part of the monetary relation that drives price determination, it provides a distorted theoretical account of the most basic relations in a monetary economy and an illusionary vision of what a modern central bank could achieve.