Money demand income elasticity in advanced and developing countries: new evidence from meta-analysis

This article extends the meta-analysis presented in Knell and Stix (2005, 2006) to investigate the possible sources of variations in empirical findings about the income elasticity of money demand in advanced and developing countries. In the case of advanced countries, we find that the income elasticities of money demand are significantly higher if broader definitions of the monetary aggregates are used. In addition, financial reforms and wealth seem to have significantly reduced the estimates of the income elasticity. However, we achieved quite different findings for the developing countries. It appears that the broader definitions of monetary aggregates seem to produce income elasticity estimates that are only marginally higher than the narrower aggregates. While the wealth (financial reform) impacts on income elasticity are statistically insignificant (weakly significant), both seems to have reduced the income elasticity estimates only marginally. Moreover, some contrasting results between advanced and developing countries are also attained with respect to the proxies of cost of holding money.