Central Bank Interest-Rate Control in a Cashless, Arrow-Debreu Economy: A Comment on Wallace

Abstract

Wallace attempts to analyse central bank interest rate control in a cashless, Arrow-Debreu economy. The model incorporates only the unit of account function of money and exhibits a version of the classical dichotomy in which arbitrary accounting prices are independent of the equilibrium real relative price vector. A model with these properties is incapable of providing a theory of the price level or inflation, nominal interest rate rules or justifying a role for the central bank. Nominal magnitudes are nominal in name only and Wallace's analysis is without theoretical foundations. It generates a series of conceptual and logical puzzles.cashless; Arrow-Debreu economy; accounting prices