Research Database

In "Liquidity Preference as Behavior Towards Risk," Tobin suggests that risk aversion and expected utility maximization can provide a rigorous foundation for an equilibrium demand for money. In Tobin's model, money plays a risk reducing role in individual portfolios. This note considers whether a general equilibrium stochastic model can produce equilibrium yield distributions that allow money to play that role if money does not appear directly as an argument in the utility or production functions of the economy. The model examined, a stochastic production variant of Samuelson's model of overlapping generations, cannot produce such yield distributions.

In "Open Market Operations in a Model of Regulated, Insured Intermediaries" [JPE, February 1980] we show that once-for-all open market purchases need not be inflationary. Here we show this result can carry over to various stationary accommodation rules given stochastic deficits. In particular, the inflationary and deflationary effects of stochastic deficits are not offset by, nor welfare improved by, a monetary policy that leans toward monetarism. Moreover, a constant money growth rule is not in the class of stationary policies given the kind of stochastic deficit we analyze, which by itself is a serious indictment of the monetarist proposal.