KREDIT und KAPITAL - Issue 1/1979


Contents


Articles

Scheithauer, Max
Die Österreichische Nationalbank im Spannungsfeld von Wachstum, Inflation und Rezession

Pohl, Rüdiger
Zentralbankgeldversorgung und Bruttosozialprodukt

Roskamp, Karl W.
A Neo-Classical Macro-Economic Model: Entrepreneurs, Bankers, Innovations and Exess Profits

Fuhrmann, Wilfried
Das heimische Geld- und Kreditangebot einer Euro-Währung

Frowen, S. F. and Guildford, G. Kouris
The Existence of a World Demand for Money Function- A Reply

Dealtry, Michael G.
Die monetäre Rolle des Goldes

Shape, Ian G. and Volker, Paul A.
The Impact of Institutional Changes on the Australian Short-Run Money Demand Function


Reports

Zwass, Adam
Inwieweit transferierbar sind die RGW-Währungen?


Book Reviews

Markmann, Heinz and Simmert, Diethard B. (Hrsg.)
Krise der Wirtschaftspolitik
(Hans-Hermann Francke)

Gergen, Karl Heinz
Die Bedeutung interner Verrechnungen für die Kreditkapazität einer Bank
(Oswald Hahn)

Barro, Robert J. and Grossmann, Herschel I.
Money, Employment and Inflation
(Werner Lachmann)

Elsner, Hermann
Gemeindehaushalte, Konjunktur und Finanzausgleich
(Manfred Piel)


Summaries

Scheithauer, Max
„The Austrian National Bank under the Constraint of Growth, Inflation and Recession“

The review of monetary developments in Austria is introduced by a description of the statutory basis, tasks and available instruments of the Austrian National Bank. It is established that the central bank is in the fortunate position of having clearly defined tasks and an array of modern instruments for effective intervention. To understand the problems and policy of the past decade, it is necessary to have an insight into the development of the country, the economy and the currency since the end of World War Il. In presenting that insight, the periods of reconstruction, of overcoming inflation and of rehabilitation are outlined. The following passages deal with the policy of the Austrian National Bank under the constraint of reinvigourated economic growth, a concomitant, highly dynamic wage and price trend, and the impact of international monetary crisis on the stability of the internal and external value of the Austrian schilling. In this period, in which the minor recession of 1967 also cast its shadow for the first time, the Austrian National Bank attempted to combat each situation by flexible and coordinated application of the instruments of credit and foreign exchange policy. The data on Austrian economic development and the high repute of the schilling at home and abroad reflect the success of those efforts. The persistence of international monetary disquiet, a renewed, very burdensome upward trend of wages and prices, and the ever more difficult management of the public household coupled with large budget deficits showed ever more clearly that the central bank alone was no longer capable of mastering the situation and that only a comprehensive package of measures undertaken by all responsible for the economy and the currency could provide a remedy. In 1972, therefore, with the cooperation of the federal government, management and labour, and the banking institutions, the first comprehensive stability agreement was concluded on a broad basis: a wide range of monetary policy measures by the central bank, agreements between management and labour on moderation in price and wage movements, and a series of fiscal and budget policy decisions were the main items in this agreement. This cooperation among all responsible agencies, which is typical of the Austrian mentality, and the concurrent conclusion of voluntary agreements to overcome specific situations and difficulties marked the course followed in the past decade of Austrian economic and monetary policy and enabled negative influences from abroad in the train of monetary crises to be largely warded off and an independent economic trend to be secured.

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Pohl, Rüdiger
„The Supply of Central Bank Money and the Gross National Product“

The article contains a skeleton framework with which monetary data can be classified and presented, and which is to be used for the time being for forthcoming monetary policy analyses appearing in this journal. This framework elaborates on the central bank money concept of the Deutsche Bundesbank ("velocity of circulation approach"), in the first place emphasizing the supply instead of the quantity of central bank money and secondly rating the liquidity of the banks as an important transmission factor. But the most important point is the third one, namely the disaggregation of the "velocity of circulation" into six components. The analysis sets out to demonstrate what types of behaviour trigger changes in the demand for central bank money, i.e. in "velocity of circulation".

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Roskamp, Karl W.
„A Neo-Classical Macro-Economic Model: Entrepreneurs, Bankers, Innovations and Excess Profits“

In this paper an attempt is made to formulize a dynamic neo-classical model. Its underlying ideas go back to Wicksell's cumulative process and Schumpeter' process of innovation and economic growth. Entrepreneurs are the driving force in a market economy. They proper an economy forward in their continuous search for excess profits, no outside Impulses are necessary. Innovations, the in centives to introduce them by investing in new capital goods, and the financing of the latter in a credit economy form the core of neo-classical economic growth process. At its center is the behavior of entrepreneurs and bankers with respect to expected earnings, risk taking and liquidity. The model has 18 equations and 18 variables. It contains as special cases the conventional seven equation neo-classical model, Keynes model, possibly Friedman's Simple Common Model and Solow's model of economic growth.

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Fuhrmann, Wilfried
“The Domestic Money and Credit Supply of a Euro-Currency”

This article shows that the money- and credit supply of a country, the currency of which is traded on the Euro-market (Euro-currency) may be analysed by means of a two-tier multiple-expansion system ("three-stage-system"). As in the case of domestic banks which are relieved of the (legal)minimum reserve requirements, the domestic central bank directly influences only a part of the total credit supply in this currency or of the tendering banking system. The other part of the supply-side of this credit market is subject to the control of foreign central banks. The existence of the Euro-market strengthens the role of the behavioral multiplier-ratios for the (domestic) creation of credits, specially the direct interest elasticity of the domestic credit supply and, consequently, the influence of non-banks and private banks on the volume of money and credit respectively. A correspondingly connected weakening in the direct effectivity of monetary instruments (e. g. the level of minimum reserve requirements)can only partly be eliminated by means of specific actions regarding supply structure (e. g. variation within the structure of the minimum reserve requirements for deposits by residents and non-residents). Economic stabilization measures should therefore be accompanied by the application of additional instruments (e. g. special reserve-requirements for credits provided by foreigners to non-banks 1. e. cash deposits (Bardepot), institutionalised direct influences of foreign central banks with regard to minimum reserve requirements for so-called foreign currency accounts, open market operations on the Euro-market etc.).

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Frowen, S. F. and Guildford, G. Kouris
“The Existence of a World Demand for Money Function - A Reply”

This paper comprises an answer to G. Zis's allegations that our work on the "Existence of a World Demand for Money Function" lacks both theoretical and empirical validity. As shown by the theoretical arguments developed as well as by the econometric tests that were carried out, the allegations of Zis can be completely reversed. We maintain that, whether the behaviour of the world demand for money function is investigated by aggregating a group of countries or by treating these countries in a pooled time series cross-section sample, the testable hypothesis is equivalent. Furthermore, our pooling technique is econometrically superior because it lessens the problem of multico-linearity and distributed lag bias. In fact when an endeavour is made to eliminate part of the distributed lag bias from the G. W. Z. data their results are reversed completely and tend to agree with ours. As to which is the best way of converting national monetary variables to a common denominator, the extensive discussion presented here points to the conclusion that the G. W. Z. approach of using current exchange rates, imparts a positive blas on the income elasticity. Especially on this point we believe that the rnethodology we followed is better designed to cater for this type of bias.

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Dealtry, Michael G.
„The Monetary Role of Gold“

The author proceeds from the assumptions that gold has always been an important stabilizing factor in the monetary system and that the lack of any active monetary role for gold is a destabilizing factor. In ventilating his standpoint, he considers three important aspects in which the monetary role of gold is of significance. The role of gold from the viewpoint of the gold-holding countries, from that of the monetary system as a whole and from that of the International Monetary Fund. He arrives at the conclusion that the deactivation of gold not only makes a return to a system of fixed exchange rates impossible, but makes even attainment of more or less stable exchange rates a difficult proposition. It is demanding too much of the international adjustment process to expect it to reconcile the entire balance-of-payments deficits and surpluses with each other over the long run. Moreover, a non-convertible dollar does not enjoy the same trust as a convertible one. Consequently, the best that can be hoped for is achievement of unstable equilibrium as described by Alfred Marshall. However, that sort of balancing act demands great adroitness. lf we lose our balance, the ensuing disturbances are substantial. In the second part, the author inquires into future prospects of currency gold. His answer to the question of whether gold can be reactivated for monetary applications is that it is conceivable on condition that there is a buyer of last resort. Only if such a buyer were found could gold transactions among the central banks attain an adequate volume. However, the answer to the following question of whether a buyer of last resort for gold can actually be found is that neither the International Monetary Fund, nor the USA, nor any new European monetary system would be capable of playing the part. Hence it follows, in the author’s view, that gold will not play any substantial new role in the monetary system. At the same time, however, a lot of gold will still be held in reserve and undoubtedly that gold will be used from time to time, though only as a last resort and for ad hoc transactions.

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Shape, Ian G. and Volker, Paul A.
„The Impact of Institutional Changes on the Australian Short-Run Money Demand Function“

in an earlier issue of Kredit und Kapital Jüttner and Tuckwell present estimates of the Australian short run real money demand function for the period 1952 (1) to 1972 (3). They conclude that the demand for real balances is a stable function of expectations with respect to real income, interest rates, and inflation, over this period. In Section II of the paper we describe the institutional framework through which Australian monetary policy has functioned over the last 21/2 decades. It is argued that the framework in the 1950's differed significantly from that of the 1960's, raising doubts as to the existence of a stable money demand function over the two periods. In Section III of the paper we discuss briefly some of the weaknesses of the Chow test of stability and present seine tests recently developed by Brown, Durbin and Evans (1975). When these tests are applied in Section IV of the paper to Jüttner and Tuckwell's money demand formulations all formulations are found to be unstable at the 95 per cent confidence level. In Section V we reject the possibility that the instability is due to these formulations being in real rather than in real per capita form or to the constraint that real money balances are homogeneous of degree zero in prices. Then in Section VI we examine the impact of various direct controls on the Australian money demand function. The evidence in this section is consistent with the hypothesis that direct controls and institutional changes have contributed to the observed instability of the money demand function and that attempts to estimate money demand functions from 1952 to the present should explicitly consider the effect of direct controls and other institutional factors.

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Reports

Zwass, Adam
„How transferable are Comecon Currencies?“

The transferable ruble (TR) was unable to develop the qualities that are indispensable for an organic relationship with other currencies (including the currencies Of the Comecon countries themselves) any better than the national currencies in the Comecon area. Unlike the latter, however, it cannot rely for support on the internal price structures in the area in which it is valid. Since it is constrained to reduce a price basis alien to production conditions in the Comecon area to a common Comecon denominator, it performs this operation with an artificially determined conversion coefficient. But it cannot manage to arrive at an economically substantiated exchange rate vis-a-vis either the hard countries, which will serve as a basis for convertibility. The efforts have third countries participate in ruble clearing have persisted equally as long as the debate on the possibility of making the TR at least partially convertible. In the Comecon area, however, western countries will be able to achieve no more with TR credit balances than the Comecon members themselves. For the decisive factor for foreign trade in this market is not money as universal purchasing power, but the deliveries agreed upon with the various partners. A clearing and quota exchange in intra-Comecon foreign trade and concurrently east-west trade based on foreign exchange clearing scarcely promise success over the long run. On the contrary, multilateral foreign trade would seem to be desirable in which the sole decisive criterion of competition, the comparative cost advantages, would take full effect. Orientation to an integrated world market would require of the west the successive elimination of crisis phenomena in the world monetary system and , until that is achieved, co-ordination of foreign trade and credit policy with respect to the east, and from the east the adjustment of control mechanisms to the needs of an effective international division of labour.

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