Monetary policy, compulsory deposits and inflation

ABSTRACT Since the outset of the Real Plan, the government has resorted to much higher reserve requirements on bank’s liabilities, as well as to the creation of reserve requirements on credit (a bank’s asset) in the attempt to restrict the expansion of monetary aggregates and credit. The policy intention was right, although the design of the reserve requirements profile, i.e., the relative structure of the reserve requirements on the different bank’s liabilities, was flawed. This is because there is a very high (initially a 100% marginal) reserve requirement on demand deposits, which is the liability that typically grows the most when high inflations subside. Since the beginning of 1995, tax changes made profitable to transfer even very short-term funds from demand deposits to short term mutual funds. Furthermore, when such transfer is undertaken, the overall reserve requirement falls substantially. The main policy recommendation is to use both the reserve requirements’ profile and the tax structure so that the aggregate financial wealth is distributed among its several components in a way compatible with low inflation. This will avoid future reallocations of portfolio, thereby increasing the efficacy of monetary policy.