The European Central Bank (ECB) assigns greater weight to the role of money in its monetary policy strategy than most, if not all, other major central banks. Nevertheless, reflecting the view that the demand for money became unstable in the early 2000s, some commentators have reported that the...

Proponents of an aggregation theoretic approach to money demand argue that simple-sum measures do not capture the theoretical notion of money, especially for broad monetary aggregates. European monetary aggregation, which uses indices for monetary services, seems attractive because these indices...

This article was originally published in the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System Open Market Policies and Operating Procedures-Staff Studies, July 1971. It is reprinted here as an addendum to these conference proceedings.

By providing guidance about future economic developments, central banks can affect private sector expectations and decisions. This can improve welfare by reducing private sector forecast errors, but it can also magnify the impact of noise in central bank forecasts. I employ a model of...