The role of money in society has been a controversial topic in economic theory over many years. Particular attention has been devoted to the analysis whether there should be competition in the supply of money, or whether this is best left to a governmental agency. This paper reviews the...

This paper analyses the information content of M1 for euro area real GDP since the beginning of the 1980s and reviews theoretical arguments on why real narrow money should help predict real GDP. We find that, unlike in the U.S., in the euro area, M1 has better and more robust forecasting...