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Learning Objectives 1. Explain the Motives for Holding Money and Relate Them to the Interest Rate That Could Be Earned from Holding Alternative Assets, Such as Bonds. 2. Draw a Money Demand Curve and Explain How Changes

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Explain the motives for holding money and relate them to the interest rate that could be earned from holding alternative assets, such as bonds. 2. Draw a money demand curve and explain how changes in other variables may lead to shifts in the money demand curve. 3. Illustrate and explain the notion of equilibrium in the money market. 4. Use graphs to explain how changes in money demand or money supply are related to changes in the bond market, in interest rates, in aggregate demand, and in real GDP and the price level.
In this section we will explore the link between money markets, bond markets, and interest rates. We first look at the demand for money. The demand curve for money is derived like any other …show more content…

Selling a bond means converting it to money. Keynes referred to the speculative demand for money as the money held in response to concern that bond prices and the prices of other financial assets might change.
Of course, money is money. One cannot sort through someone’s checking account and locate which funds are held for transactions and which funds are there because the owner of the account is worried about a drop in bond prices or is taking a precaution. We distinguish money held for different motives in order to understand how the quantity of money demanded will be affected by a key determinant of the demand for money: the interest rate.
Interest Rates and the Demand for Money
The quantity of money people hold to pay for transactions and to satisfy precautionary and speculative demand is likely to vary with the interest rates they can earn from alternative assets such as bonds. When interest rates rise relative to the rates that can be earned on money deposits, people hold less money. When interest rates fall, people hold more money. The logic of these conclusions about the money people hold and interest rates depends on the people’s motives for holding money.
The quantity of money households want to hold varies according to their income and the interest rate; different

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