Long run effects of money on real consumption and investment in the U.S.

Abstract

This paper tests for long run neutrality (LRN) of money with respect to real expenditures in the U.S. over the 1947-2004 period. Real consumption and investment expenditures, as well as their broadly defined components, are examined. We also test for the effects of money on long run reallocations of GDP among durables, nondurables, and services. The time series characteristics of each variable are rigorously investigated. This is followed by application of the LRN test, introduced by Fisher and Seater (1993), to each real expenditures series. Although rejections of LRN occur in a number of studies, our results support long run neutrality of money with respect to real expenditures regardless of the level of data aggregation.Money neutrality; consumption; investment