A COMPARISON AMONG PARTIAL ADJUSTMENT, RATIONAL-EXPECTATIONS AND ERROR CORRECTION ESTIMATES OF THE CANADIAN DEMAND FOR MONEY

Starting from a dynamic optimization principle, the currently most popular approaches to modelling money demand functions are derived. The partial adjustment/adaptive expectations, rational expectations, and error correction mechanism formulations are then estimated using a common data set. The error correction mechanism equation is found to dominate the others either because their implicit restrictions are rejected (rational expectations) or by employing the encompassing principle (partial adjustment/adaptive expectations). Surprisingly all three forms have similar long‐run solutions. Since the short‐run dynamics differ substantially, the results have important implications for the conduct of monetary policy. Copyright © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.