Theory suggests that uninsurable income risk induces individuals to accumulate assets as a precautionary reserve of value. Most assets, however, bear rate of return risk, that can be diversified only if every asset is traded by a large number of individuals and arbitrage is frictionless. Using...

Adopting a system approach, the paper evaluates results of empirical research on money demand recently obtained at the Bank of Italy in a single equation context.

The aim of this work is to arrive at a better understanding of the underlying reasons for the slow adoption of electronic payment instruments in Italy. Our findings indicate that a pivotal role in explaining Italy’s lag in abandoning cash is played by development factors, such as innovative...

In this paper we estimate the demand for liquidity by US non financial firms using data from COMPUSTAT database. In contrast to the previous literature, we consider firm-specific effects, such as cost-of-capital and wages. From the balanced and unbalanced panel estimations we infer that there...

In dynamic panel data models, which are particularly well-suited to cross-country analysis, the Mean Group estimator (Pesaran and Smith, 1995) is under certain quite strong conditions consistent, but theoretical and empirical evidence indicates that it can be biased when the number of time...

This paper assesses the relevance of national information in estimating the demand for euro-area M3 from three perspectives. First, we check whether aggregating national money demands is appropriate. Second, we compare time-series and panel methods to estimate aggregate long-run coefficients....

This paper examines the impact of stock market fluctuations on money demand in Italy taking a long-run perspective. The empirical findings suggest that stock market fluctuations contribute to explain temporary movements in the liquidity preference, rather than its secular patterns. Overall, a...

The strong and prolonged deviation of money growth from its reference value since 2001 has caused concern among policy-makers about the upside risks to price stability from monetary developments. In this paper we provide evidence that these risks might be smaller than previously assumed. We...

The introduction of the euro notes and coins in the first two months of 2002 was followed by a lively debate on the alleged inflationary effects of the new currency. In Italy, as in the rest of the euro area, survey-based measures signaled a much sharper rise in inflation than measured by the...

Empirical studies of the shoe-leather costs of inflation are typically computed using M1 as a measure of money. Yet, official data on M1 includes all currency issued, regardless of the country of residence of the holder. Using adjusted monetary data, we show that the failure to control for...