SFB 303 Discussion Paper No. B - 304

Author: Neumann, Manfred J. M.
Title: A Comparative Study of Seigniorage: Japan and Germany
Abstract: This paper presents a comparative study of the generation and distribution of seigniorage in Germany and Japan. The focus is on the contribution that seigniorage has made to the finance of budget deficits. It is shown that over decades this has been much less than one would expect applying the traditional concept of monetary seigniorage or the Drazen- concept of the real resource burden carried by the private sector. The study reveals for both countries that the differential loss of seigniorage results from negative real returns on the portfolio of non-government debt. A major factor is the repeated revaluation of the Yen and the D-Mark which has reduced the annual rate of return by about 2 percentage points on average over the sample period 1961-91 in both countries.
Keywords:
JEL-Classification-Number:
Creation-Date: January 1995
Unfortunately this paper is not available online. Please contact us to order a hardcopy.

SFB 303 Homepage

30.06.1998, Webmaster