Bruegel: Does money matter in the euro area? Evidence from a new Divisia index

17 June 2015

The results of a study based on euro-area Divisia-money aggregates suggest that money matters for output, prices and interest rates, while the European Central Bank can influence monetary developments.

Zsolt Darvas created a a dataset on euro-area Divisia-money aggregates. In this paper, Zsolt estimates theoretically correct responses to money, user cost and interest rate shocks using structural vector-autoregressions. The findings suggest that money matters for output, prices and interest rates, while the European Central Bank (ECB) can influence monetary developments.

Highlights

• VARs reveal significant euro-area output and prices responses to Divisia-money shocks.

• After a short-term liquidity effect, Divisia-money shocks increase interest rates.

• Divisia-money reacts to user costs and interest rates shocks.

• Most of these results are not significant when we use simple-sum measures of money.

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