SHOULD THE FED TAMPER WITH THE QUANTITY OF MONEY?
Most economists are of the view that a growing economy requires a growing money stock, because economic growth gives rise to a greater demand for money, which must be accommodated.
Failing to do so, it is maintained, will lead to a decline in the prices of goods and services, which in turn will destabilize the economy and lead to an economic recession or, even worse, depression.
For most economists and commentators the main role of the Fed is to keep the supply and the demand for money in equilibrium. Whenever an increase in the demand for money occurs, to maintain the state of equilibrium the accommodation of the demand for money by the Fed is considered a necessary action to keep the economy on a path of economic and price stability.
As long as the growth rate of money supply does not exceed the growth rate of the demand for money, then the accommodation of the increase in the demand for money is not considered as money printing and therefore harmful to the economy.
Note that on this way of thinking the growth rate in the demand for money absorbs the growth rate of the supply of money hence no effective increase in the supply of money occurs. So from this perspective, no harm is inflicted on the economy.
Historically, many different goods have been used as money. On this, Mises observed that, over time,
. . . there would be an inevitable tendency for the less marketable of the series of goods used as media of exchange to be one by one rejected until at last only a single commodity remained, which was universally employed as a medium of exchange; in a word, money[1].
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