Monetarism School of Thought Monetarism school of economic thought is based on the rate of monetary growth. With the growth of the money supply the price level with increase. “Monetarists believe that the objectives of monetary policy are best met by targeting the growth rate of the money supply. Monetarism gained prominence in the 1970s by bringing down inflation in the United States and United Kingdom and greatly influenced the U.S central bank’s decision to stimulate the economy during the global recession of 2007-2009” (Jahan). I will explain and discuss the school of Monetarism and the relevancy in today’s society.
At center of Monetarism is the government involvement in circulation of the money supply. The fluctuation in the supply influences the output of price levels of both short and long runs. “Monetarism is a macroeconomic school of thought that emphasizes (1) long-run monetary neutrality, (2) short-run monetary nonneutrality, (3) the distinction between real and nominal interest rates, and (4) the role of monetary aggregates in policy analysis. It is particularly associated with the writings of Milton Friedman, Anna Schwartz, Karl Brunner, and Allan Meltzer” ( McCallum).
Monetarism’s rise to intellectual prominence began with writings on basic monetary theory by Friedman and other University of Chicago economists during the 1950s, writings that were influential because of their adherence to fundamental neoclassical principles. The most outstanding in this series was Friedman’s presidential address to the American Economic Association in 1967, published in 1968 as “The Role of Monetary Policy.” In this paper Friedman developed the natural-rate hypothesis (which he had clearly stated two years earlier) and used it as a pillar in the argument for a constant-growth-rate rule for monetary policy. Almost simultaneously, Edmund Phelps, who was not a monetarist, developed a similar no-trade-off theory, and, within a few years, events in the world economy apparently provided dramatic empirical support (McCallum).
The most known system of Monetarism is Quantity theory which is a direct relationship between the quantity of money in an economy and the level of prices of goods and services sold. The theory is an accounting identity—that is, it must be true. It says that the money supply multiplied by velocity (the rate at which money changes hands) equals nominal expenditures in the economy (the number of goods and services sold multiplied by the average price paid for them). As an accounting identity, this equation is uncontroversial. What is controversial is velocity. Monetarist theory views velocity as generally stable, which implies that nominal income is largely a function of the money supply. Variations in nominal income reflect changes in real economic activity (the number of goods and services sold) and inflation (the average price paid for them) (Jahan).
The key elements of the quantity theory are the following: Long-run monetary neutrality: An increase in the money stock would be followed by an increase in the general price level in the long run, with no effects on real factors such as consumption or output.• Short-run monetary nonneutrality: An increase in the stock of money has temporary effects on real output (GDP) and employment in the short run because wages and prices take time to adjust (they are sticky, in economic parlance)… Constant money growth rule: Friedman, who died in 2006, proposed a fixed monetary rule, which states that the Fed should be required to target the growth rate of money to equal the growth rate of real GDP, leaving the price level unchanged. If the economy is expected to grow at 2 percent in a given year, the Fed should allow the money supply to increase by 2 percent. The Fed should be bound to fixed rules in conducting monetary policy because discretionary power can destabilize the economy.• Interest rate flexibility: The money growth rule was intended to allow interest rates,
