| Abstract: | Models treating money either as a consumer good or as a producer good are encompassed by a model in which both households and firms use money as a buffer between receipts and expenditures. A rise in nominal interest rates increases resources devoted to intermediation, while discouraging purchases financed from accumulated cash. If investment is financed from contemporaneous earnings, there is a tendency to substitute out of consumption and into investment when interest rates are high. Greater resources devoted to intermediation generate a negative wealth effect. The net impact on investment is ambiguous. |
