Financial Innovation, Banking and Monetary Aggregates reviews the impact of financial innovation on the measurement of money and presents the first collection of country studies appraising the usefulness of Divisia indices in deriving monetary aggregates. Monetary aggregates are traditionally formed by simply summing various monetary components such as cash and balances in savings and cheque accounts. The monetary usefulness, or 'moneyness', of these components differs and can change as a result of innovation in banking, monetary transmission and payment services. To gauge the importance of such distortions and the merits of alternative weighted monetary indices, particularly Divisia indices, this volume brings together authoritative empirical studies of countries including the US, the UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Italy and Japan. The authors conclude by showing how Divisia monetary indices act as a useful supplement to traditional monetary aggregates.

This Open Access book from the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy explains how money creation and banking works, describes the main problems of the current monetary and financial system and discusses several reform options. This book systematically evaluates proposals for fundamental monetary reform, including ideas to separate money and credit by breaking up banks, introducing a central bank digital currency, and introducing public payment banks. By drawing on these plans, the authors suggest several concrete reforms to the current banking system with the aim to ensure that the monetary system remains stable, contributes to the Dutch economy, fairly distributes benefits, costs and risks, and enjoys public legitimacy. This systematic approach, and the accessible way in which the book is written, allows specialized and non-specialised readers to understand the intricacies of money, banking, monetary reform and financial innovation, far beyond the Dutch context [Resumen de la editorial]

Scientific Essay from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 1,7 (A-), University of Teesside (Teesside Business School), course: Money and Finance - Economics, language: English, abstract: Financial markets have always undergone changes . However since the 70s the speed of change has accelerated enormously . New types of financial instruments, financial markets and techniques have been developed. The most significant innovations have been the financial derivatives, e.g. futures, options and swaps and the development of securitisation which have mainly been created to manage risk and provide liquidity. The market for these instruments has become huge – by some estimates in excess of $100 trillion . History shows that financial innovation has been a critical and persistent part of the economic landscape. But why has it been like that? First of all for a better understanding it is necessary to define the term ‘financial innovation’. Financial innovation is described by Van Horne as “the life blood of efficient and responsive capital markets” . He emphasis that it is part of the bedrock of our financial system. Merton views financial innovation as “the engine driving the financial system towards its goal of improving the performance of what economists call the real economy”. Other authors define financial innovation as “the design of new financial instruments and techniques of financial intermediation, structural change in the financial system, with the appearance of new financial markets and changes in organisation and behaviour of institutions” as well as “the design of new financial instruments or the packaging together of existing financial instruments” . There is a general recognition of the particular importance of financial innovations for the wealth of a society. This paper outlines the nature and main features of innovation in financial markets and suggests what factors may stimulate the apparent increase in the rate of innovation since the 1970s with a particular view on the role of banks. The final part discusses the question if financial innovations have been beneficial for borrowers and lenders?