Essays on money, inflation and asset markets

Abstract

This dissertation considers the relationship between the money stock and, in turn, inflation and asset markets in two tranches. Specifically, the first tranche focuses on the relationship between money, asset markets and uncertainty, while the second addresses the transmission of changes in the money stock to prices and output. The starting premise is that changes in the money stock affect goods and asset markets and the research predominantly uses time series-based econometric methods, informed by economic theory and using US data, to investigate money’s links to both. The evidence documented in the dissertation supports the view that “money matters” and has explanatory power over economic and financial market developments It concurs with money’s role in determining inflation along lines that have been described in the economics literature over many decades, something that always resurfaces to counter whatever inflation theory has recently been put forward and is in vogue. The relationship between money and financial markets is one that has not received as much attention and probably has a long way to go before being well understood, but on that path the research included in this dissertation points to money being a causative variable in financial market developments.