A Comparative Study of Seigniorage: Japan and Germany

Manfred J. M. Neumann
Additional contact information
Manfred J. M. Neumann: Professor and Director, Institute for International Economics, University of Bonn, Germany

Monetary and Economic Studies, 1996, vol. 14, issue 1, 104-142

Abstract: The paper presents a comparative study of the generation and distribution of seigniorage in Germany and Japan for the sample period 1961-91. Several measures of seigniorage are analysed and a comprehensive framework for measurement of the sources and uses of seigniorage is developed.Specifically,it is shown that the conventional concept of monetary seigniorage overstates government gains from money creation when the foreign and private sectors are the primary recipients of central bank credit.The study also reveals negative real returns on the portfolio of non-government debt for both countries.A major factor has been valuation losses on foreign assets,resulting from the appreciation of the yen and the deutsche mark.Those losses reduced real returns by more than two percentage points on average over the sample period in both countries.

Keywords: Seigniorage; Inflation tax; Bank of Japan; Bundesbank; Foreign exchange losses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1996
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imes.boj.or.jp/research/papers/english/me14-1-5.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ime:imemes:v:14:y:1996:i:1:p:104-142

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Monetary and Economic Studies from Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kinken ().