This paper provides empirical evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the secular price increase in the 16th century is mainly caused by money supply developments as the discovery of new mines in Latin America. First we review price developments for several European countries over the 16th...

Recent empirical studies have found evidence of unstable long run money demand functions if recent data are used. If the link between money balances and the macroeconomy is fragile, the rationale of monetary aggregates in the ECB strategy has to be doubted. In contrast we present a "stable''...