| Latest Economics NCERT Notes, Solutions and Extra Q & A (Class 9th to 12th) | |||||||||||||||||||
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| 9th | 10th | 11th | 12th | ||||||||||||||||
| Class 12th Chapters | ||
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| Introductory Microeconomics | ||
| 1. Introduction | 2. Theory Of Consumer Behaviour | 3. Production And Costs |
| 4. The Theory Of The Firm Under Perfect Competition | 5. Market Equilibrium | |
| Introductory Macroeconomics | ||
| 1. Introduction | 2. National Income Accounting | 3. Money And Banking |
| 4. Determination Of Income And Employment | 5. Government Budget And The Economy | 6. Open Economy Macroeconomics |
Chapter 3 Money And Banking
This chapter explains the role and functions of money and the banking system in a modern economy. Money is a crucial asset that overcomes the problems of the barter system by serving as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value.
The money supply in an economy is created and managed by a two-tiered system. At the top is the Central Bank (like the RBI in India), which issues currency and controls the overall money supply. Below it are the Commercial Banks, which play a vital role through the process of credit creation.
The core mechanism of money creation is the money multiplier, which shows how an initial deposit can lead to a much larger increase in the total money supply. This process is limited by the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) set by the central bank. The central bank uses various policy tools, such as the CRR, bank rate, and Open Market Operations, to manage the money supply and influence economic activity.
Functions of Money
Money is an essential social institution in any economy where multiple economic agents engage in market transactions. It can be defined as anything that is commonly and universally accepted as a medium of exchange. While its primary role is to facilitate trade, its existence is what allows complex economies to function efficiently.
The Problem with Barter Exchange
An economic system that operates without the use of money is known as a barter system. In such a system, goods and services are directly exchanged for other goods and services. While simple in theory, the barter system is incredibly inefficient in practice due to several major problems.
Double Coincidence of Wants
The primary and most significant difficulty with barter is the need for a double coincidence of wants. For an exchange to take place, each party must have what the other party desires, and each must desire what the other party has.
For example, a farmer with a surplus of rice who wants to acquire a pair of shoes must find a shoemaker who not only has a surplus of shoes but also specifically wants to trade them for rice at that particular time. In a large and specialized economy, finding such a perfect match is extremely difficult and time-consuming. The time and effort spent searching for a suitable trading partner are known as search costs, and under barter, these costs can be prohibitively high, stifling trade and economic activity.
Other Problems with Barter
- Lack of a Common Measure of Value: In a barter system, there is no standard unit to measure the value of goods. The value of every good has to be expressed in terms of every other good (e.g., 1 cow = 20 chickens = 100 kg of wheat). This makes accounting and comparing the value of different items extremely complex.
- Indivisibility of Certain Goods: Many goods cannot be easily divided into smaller parts. A person who owns a horse but only wants to buy a small quantity of wheat cannot divide the horse to make the trade.
- Difficulty in Storing Wealth: Storing wealth is cumbersome and often risky in a barter economy. Goods like grains or livestock are perishable, costly to store, and may lose value over time.
The Main Functions of Money
To overcome the severe inefficiencies of barter, societies develop an intermediate good that is universally acceptable to all parties as payment. This good is called money. It performs four key functions in a modern economy.
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Medium of Exchange
This is the primary function of money. By acting as an intermediary, money solves the problem of the double coincidence of wants. It separates the single act of barter (Goods ↔ Goods) into two distinct transactions: a sale (Goods → Money) and a purchase (Money → Goods).
An individual can sell their surplus goods for money to anyone who wants them, and then use that money at a later time to buy the goods they need from anyone who is selling them. This function dramatically reduces transaction costs, promotes specialization, and allows for a vast increase in the volume of trade.
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Unit of Account (or Measure of Value)
Money serves as a convenient and common measure of value, or a "yardstick" for quoting prices and recording debts. The value of all goods and services can be expressed in a single, understandable monetary unit (e.g., Rupees, Dollars).
This common measure simplifies economic calculations, allows for easy comparison of the values of different goods, and is essential for business accounting and personal budgeting. It also allows us to understand the value of money itself. When the general price level rises (inflation), the value or purchasing power of money decreases, as each unit of money can now purchase fewer goods and services.
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Store of Value
Money provides a mechanism for transferring purchasing power from the present to the future. Under barter, storing wealth is difficult due to the perishable nature of many goods. Money, by contrast, is durable and has very low storage costs.
While other assets like gold, property, or bonds also act as a store of value, money is unique in its perfect liquidity. Liquidity refers to the ease and speed with which an asset can be converted into a medium of exchange without loss of value. Money is the most liquid asset. However, there is a trade-off: holding money means forgoing the potential return (like interest or rent) that other assets can provide, and its value can be eroded by inflation.
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Standard of Deferred Payment
Money serves as a standard for payments that are to be made in the future. Many economic transactions, such as loans, installment plans, and salary contracts, involve future obligations. Money provides a stable and universally accepted unit for denominating these debts and future payments, which would be extremely difficult to arrange in a barter system.
The Move Towards a Cashless Society
Many countries, including India, are increasingly encouraging a shift from an economy reliant on physical cash to one based on digital transactions. A cashless society is one where financial transactions are conducted through the electronic transfer of digital information (representing money) rather than through the exchange of physical notes and coins.
This transition is being driven by technological advancements and government policies aimed at increasing transparency, reducing corruption, and improving financial inclusion. Key initiatives in India, such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (for universal bank access), the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and various e-Wallets, have significantly strengthened this move. The widespread penetration of mobile and smartphones across the country has made digital payments accessible to a large portion of the population, making a "less-cash" economy a realistic and achievable goal.
Demand for Money and Supply of Money
Demand for Money
The demand for money, a concept central to macroeconomic theory and famously termed liquidity preference by John Maynard Keynes, refers to the desire of people to hold a portion of their wealth in the form of money. Money is the most liquid of all assets, meaning it can be used immediately as a medium of exchange without any loss of value.
The decision to hold money involves a fundamental trade-off. The primary advantage of holding money is its perfect liquidity for conducting transactions. The primary disadvantage is its opportunity cost: by holding cash, individuals and firms forgo the interest or returns they could have earned by holding their wealth in other, less liquid assets like bank fixed deposits or bonds.
Motives for Demanding Money
According to Keynesian theory, there are two primary motives for holding money:
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The Transaction Motive:
This is the principal reason for holding money. People need to hold cash to carry out their day-to-day transactions because there is often a time lag between when they receive their income and when they need to make expenditures. The amount of money needed for this purpose is directly proportional to the total value of transactions in the economy. Since the value of transactions is closely related to the nominal national income (Price Level × Real GDP), a rise in income or prices will lead to a rise in the transaction demand for money.
This relationship is often expressed as:
$M_T^d = kPY$
where $M_T^d$ is the transaction demand for money, $k$ is a positive fraction representing the proportion of nominal income people desire to hold as cash, $P$ is the general price level, and $Y$ is real GDP. The term $PY$ represents the nominal GDP.
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The Speculative Motive:
This motive arises from the desire to hold money as a financial asset to avoid potential losses from holding interest-earning assets like bonds. The key to understanding this motive is the inverse relationship between the price of a bond and the market rate of interest. When the market interest rate rises, the price of existing bonds (which pay a fixed return) falls, and vice versa.
- When the interest rate is high, people expect it is more likely to fall in the future. A future fall in interest rates would lead to a rise in bond prices, resulting in a capital gain for bondholders. Therefore, people prefer to hold bonds instead of money. At high interest rates, the speculative demand for money is low.
- When the interest rate is low, people expect it is more likely to rise in the future. A future rise in interest rates would lead to a fall in bond prices, resulting in a capital loss. To avoid this anticipated loss, people prefer to sell their bonds and hold cash. At low interest rates, the speculative demand for money is high.
Therefore, the speculative demand for money is inversely related to the rate of interest. An extreme case is the liquidity trap, a situation where the interest rate is so low that everyone expects it to rise, causing people to hoard any extra money supplied rather than buying bonds.
Supply of Money
In a modern economy, money consists of cash (currency notes and coins) and various forms of bank deposits. The money supply is a stock variable, representing the total stock of money in circulation among the public at a specific point in time. The term "public" refers to the money-using sector of the economy, thus excluding the money-creating sector (the government and the banking system).
The money supply is created and managed by a system comprising two types of institutions:
1. The Central Bank
The Central Bank is the apex monetary institution of a country, responsible for regulating its monetary and financial system. In India, the central bank is the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which was established in 1935.
Its key functions related to the money supply include:
- Sole Authority to Issue Currency: The RBI has the exclusive right to issue currency notes in India. These notes are fiat money (their value is derived from government order or "fiat," not from any intrinsic value of the material) and are legal tender (they cannot be legally refused for the settlement of any debt or transaction).
- Controller of Money Supply: It uses a variety of monetary policy tools to manage the total money supply in the economy to achieve macroeconomic objectives.
- Banker to the Government and Commercial Banks: It manages the government's finances and acts as a lender and supervisor for the commercial banking system.
- Custodian of Foreign Exchange Reserves: It manages the country's reserves of foreign currencies.
The currency issued by the central bank, which includes currency held by the public and cash reserves held by commercial banks, is called 'high-powered money' or 'reserve money' or the 'monetary base'. It is termed "high-powered" because this initial money forms the basis upon which the commercial banking system can create a much larger amount of money through the credit creation process.
2. Commercial Banks
Commercial banks are financial institutions whose primary functions are accepting deposits from the public and providing loans. They are a crucial part of the money creation system because the demand deposits they create through lending are a major component of the money supply. They earn profit from the "spread"—the difference between the interest rate they charge on loans and the interest rate they pay on deposits.
Measures of Money Supply in India
The RBI publishes four alternative measures of money supply, which are known as monetary aggregates. They are categorized based on their decreasing order of liquidity (i.e., how easily they can be used as a medium of exchange).
-
M1 (Narrow Money): This is the most liquid measure. It includes:
M1 = CU (Currency notes and coins with the public) + DD (Net Demand Deposits held by commercial banks).
Net demand deposits exclude inter-bank deposits.
- M2: A broader measure than M1.
M2 = M1 + Savings deposits with Post Office savings banks.
-
M3 (Broad Money): This is the most commonly used measure of money supply.
M3 = M1 + Net Time Deposits of the commercial banking system.
Time deposits, like fixed deposits (FDs), are less liquid than demand deposits.
- M4: The broadest but least liquid measure.
M4 = M3 + Total deposits with Post Office savings organisations (excluding National Savings Certificates).
M1 and M2 are generally referred to as narrow money, while M3 and M4 are referred to as broad money. M3 is often called the aggregate monetary resources of the country.
Money Creation by the Banking System
One of the most remarkable features of the modern banking system is the ability of commercial banks to "create" money. This process, known as credit creation, is not about printing new currency but about expanding the total money supply (specifically, the deposit component of money supply) to a level far greater than the initial cash reserves available in the system.
The entire process is built on a simple yet crucial premise of fractional reserve banking: banks know from experience that on any given day, only a small fraction of their depositors will come to withdraw their funds. This allows a bank to safely hold only a portion of its deposits as reserves and lend out the remaining amount to earn interest.
When a bank provides a loan, it typically does so by opening a new demand deposit account in the borrower's name and crediting the loan amount to it. Since demand deposits are a key component of the money supply (part of M1), this act of creating a new deposit effectively expands the total money supply in the economy.
Assets, Liabilities, and the Balance Sheet of a Bank
To understand money creation, we must first understand a bank's balance sheet. A balance sheet is an accounting statement that lists a firm's assets and liabilities at a specific point in time. By accounting convention, Total Assets must always equal Total Liabilities.
- Assets: These are things a bank owns or claims it has on others. For a commercial bank, the main assets are:
- Reserves: These are deposits that commercial banks are required to keep with the Central Bank (RBI), plus any cash they hold in their own vaults. They are an asset because they are the bank's claim on the central bank.
- Loans: When a bank lends money to the public, the loan is an asset to the bank because it represents a claim the bank has on the borrower for repayment.
- Liabilities: These are the debts of the bank or claims that others have on the bank. For a commercial bank, the main liability is:
- Deposits: The money that the public deposits with the bank is the bank's primary liability, as it is a claim that depositors have on the bank and can be withdrawn on demand.
Balance Sheet of a Fictional Bank
Let's imagine a fictional bank that has just started. Its only transaction so far is receiving a deposit of ₹100 from a customer. The bank places this entire amount as reserves with the RBI. Its initial balance sheet would look like this:
| Assets | Liabilities |
|---|---|
| Reserves: ₹100 | Deposits: ₹100 |
| Total: ₹100 | Total: ₹100 |
At this stage, the money supply in the economy is just the ₹100 in deposits.
Limits to Credit Creation and the Money Multiplier
A commercial bank's ability to create money is not infinite. The extent of credit creation is strictly controlled by the central bank through the imposition of a Legal Reserve Ratio (LRR). This ratio dictates the minimum fraction of total deposits that a bank must hold as reserves and cannot lend out.
- Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR): This is the percentage of a bank's total deposits that it is legally required to maintain as cash reserves with the Central Bank (RBI).
- Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR): This is the percentage of a bank's total deposits that it must maintain in the form of specified safe and liquid assets, such as government securities, cash, and gold.
These reserve requirements serve two purposes: they ensure the safety and liquidity of the banking system, and they act as the primary tool for the central bank to control the money supply.
The Money Multiplier Process
The reserve ratio is what gives rise to the money multiplier effect. The multiplier determines the maximum amount of total deposits that can be created from a given initial deposit (or a given amount of reserves).
Let's continue our example, assuming the CRR is 20% (and SLR is 0 for simplicity):
- Initial State: The bank has ₹100 in deposits and ₹100 in reserves.
- Required Reserves: The bank needs to hold 20% of ₹100, which is ₹20.
- Excess Reserves: The bank has ₹100 - ₹20 = ₹80 in excess reserves, which it can lend out.
- Round 1: The bank lends ₹80 to a borrower. This ₹80 is spent and is deposited by the recipient into another bank (or the same bank). The total deposits in the banking system are now ₹100 + ₹80 = ₹180.
- Round 2: Of the new ₹80 deposit, the bank must keep 20% (₹16) as reserves and can lend out the remaining ₹64. This ₹64 is then spent and re-deposited, becoming a new deposit elsewhere.
- Continuing Process: This process of lending and re-depositing continues in smaller and smaller amounts in each round, as shown in the table:
| Round | New Deposit | Required Reserve (20%) | Loan (Excess Reserve) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial | ₹100.00 | ₹20.00 | ₹80.00 |
| 2 | ₹80.00 | ₹16.00 | ₹64.00 |
| 3 | ₹64.00 | ₹12.80 | ₹51.20 |
| ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Total | ₹500.00 | ₹100.00 | ₹400.00 |
The initial deposit of ₹100 has led to a total deposit creation of ₹500. The total increase in the money supply is ₹400 (the initial ₹100 was already part of the money supply, it just changed form from currency to deposit).
The formula for the money multiplier is:
$ \text{Money Multiplier} = \frac{1}{\text{Legal Reserve Ratio (LRR)}} $
In our example, with a LRR (CRR) of 20% or 0.20, the multiplier is $1/0.20 = 5$. This means that every ₹1 of initial reserves can support up to ₹5 of total deposits. Therefore, the total deposits that can be created are: Initial Deposit × Money Multiplier = ₹100 × 5 = ₹500.
Policy Tools to Control Money Supply
The Central Bank, which in India is the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), is vested with the responsibility of managing the country's money supply. This is a critical function of monetary policy, aimed at achieving macroeconomic goals like controlling inflation, promoting economic growth, and ensuring financial stability. The RBI's role as the lender of last resort—being ready to provide liquidity to commercial banks facing a crisis—gives it significant leverage over the banking system. The RBI employs several tools to influence the reserves of commercial banks, their lending capacity, and ultimately, the total money supply. These tools can be broadly categorized as quantitative and qualitative.
Quantitative Tools (General or Indirect Tools)
These tools are designed to control the overall volume or extent of money supply in the economy. They affect the entire banking system rather than specific sectors.
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Reserve Ratios (Cash Reserve Ratio - CRR and Statutory Liquidity Ratio - SLR)
These are the most direct tools to control the lending capacity of banks. By changing the legally required reserve ratios, the RBI can directly alter the amount of excess reserves banks have available for creating credit and can also change the size of the money multiplier.
- To Contract the Money Supply (during inflation): The RBI will increase the CRR and/or SLR. This forces banks to hold a larger portion of their deposits as reserves, reducing their capacity to lend. The money multiplier also decreases ($ \text{Multiplier} = 1/\text{LRR} $), further dampening the credit creation process.
- To Expand the Money Supply (during a recession): The RBI will decrease the CRR and/or SLR. This frees up funds for the banks, increasing their excess reserves and allowing them to lend more. The money multiplier also increases, amplifying the credit creation process.
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Open Market Operations (OMO)
This is one of the most flexible and frequently used tools of monetary policy. It refers to the buying and selling of government-issued bonds and securities by the RBI in the open market.
- To Expand the Money Supply (Injection of Liquidity): When the RBI buys government securities from the open market (from commercial banks or the public), it pays for them by issuing a cheque. This cheque increases the cash reserves of the commercial banks, thereby increasing their lending capacity and expanding the money supply.
- To Contract the Money Supply (Absorption of Liquidity): When the RBI sells government securities, buyers (banks or the public) pay for them. This withdraws money from the banking system, which reduces the cash reserves of commercial banks, contracting their lending capacity and the money supply.
Modern OMOs are primarily conducted through short-term agreements known as Repo (Repurchase Agreement) and Reverse Repo operations, which have become the main tools of monetary policy:
- The Repo Rate is the fixed interest rate at which the RBI provides short-term (typically overnight) loans to commercial banks against the collateral of government securities. It is the key policy rate. An increase in the repo rate makes borrowing from the RBI more expensive for banks, discouraging lending and contracting the money supply. A decrease has the opposite effect.
- The Reverse Repo Rate is the fixed interest rate at which the RBI absorbs liquidity from commercial banks. An increase in the reverse repo rate incentivizes banks to park their excess funds with the RBI instead of lending them out, thus contracting the money supply.
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Bank Rate
The Bank Rate is the rate at which the RBI provides long-term loans to commercial banks, often acting as a penal rate for banks that fail to meet their reserve requirements. While historically important, its role as a direct instrument has diminished, with the repo rate now being the primary policy rate. It now serves more as a signaling mechanism for the RBI's long-term monetary policy stance.
- An increase in the Bank Rate signals a tightening of monetary policy, making long-term borrowing more expensive for banks, which in turn reduces their lending capacity and helps to contract the money supply.
- A decrease in the Bank Rate signals an easing of policy and has the opposite effect, helping to expand the money supply.
Qualitative Tools (Selective or Direct Tools)
These tools are used to regulate the flow of credit to specific sectors or for specific purposes, rather than affecting the overall volume of credit. They include:
- Margin Requirements: The RBI can prescribe the margin (the proportion of the loan amount that the borrower has to provide) for loans against specific securities. Increasing the margin for a particular sector discourages lending to it.
- Moral Suasion: The RBI uses persuasion, through meetings, letters, and directives, to encourage or discourage commercial banks from lending for specific purposes, in line with the country's economic policy.
- Credit Rationing: The RBI can fix a ceiling on the amount of credit available for certain sectors.
Detailed Discussion: Demand and Supply for Money
Money is the most liquid of all assets because it is universally acceptable as a medium of exchange. However, holding money has an opportunity cost—the interest that could have been earned by holding wealth in other assets like bonds or fixed deposits. The demand for money, therefore, arises from a trade-off between the advantage of liquidity and the disadvantage of the foregone interest. This desire to hold liquid assets is often referred to as liquidity preference.
The Transaction Motive
The principal reason for holding money is to facilitate day-to-day transactions. This is because the timing of income receipts (e.g., a monthly salary) does not perfectly align with the continuous stream of expenditures. People need to hold a certain cash balance to bridge this gap.
The total transaction demand for money in an economy is directly proportional to the total value of nominal transactions. Since the value of transactions is closely related to the nominal GDP, we can express the transaction demand for money as:
$M_T^d = k.T$ or more commonly as $M_T^d = kPY$
where $T$ is the total value of transactions, $k$ is a positive fraction, $P$ is the general price level, and $Y$ is the real GDP. Thus, as real income or the price level rises, the demand for money for transaction purposes also rises.
The Speculative Motive
This motive explains the demand for money as a financial asset. Individuals can hold their wealth in various forms, but for simplicity, we consider a choice between holding money (which earns no interest) and holding interest-bearing assets like bonds.
The key to this motive is the inverse relationship between the price of a bond and the market rate of interest. A bond typically pays a fixed annual return (coupon). If the market interest rate rises, new bonds will offer a higher return, making existing bonds with lower fixed returns less attractive; hence, their market price will fall. Conversely, if the market interest rate falls, the price of existing bonds will rise.
- When the interest rate is very high, people expect it is more likely to fall in the future. A future fall in interest rates would cause bond prices to rise, leading to a capital gain. People would, therefore, prefer to buy bonds now and hold less money. Thus, at high interest rates, the speculative demand for money is low.
- When the interest rate is very low, people expect it is more likely to rise in the future. A future rise in interest rates would cause bond prices to fall, leading to a capital loss. To avoid this loss, people would prefer to sell their bonds and hold money instead. Thus, at low interest rates, the speculative demand for money is high.
This creates an inverse relationship between the speculative demand for money and the rate of interest. At a very low rate of interest, this demand may become infinitely elastic, a situation Keynes called the liquidity trap.
The Supply of Money: Various Measures
In a modern economy, money consists mainly of currency notes and coins issued by the monetary authority and the deposits held by the public in commercial banks.
Fiat Money and Legal Tenders
The currency notes and coins in circulation have a value far greater than their intrinsic material worth. A ₹500 note is just a piece of paper, but it is accepted in exchange for ₹500 worth of goods. This is because its value is derived from the guarantee or "fiat" (order) of the issuing authority (the RBI). This type of money is called fiat money.
Currency notes and coins are also legal tenders, meaning that by law, they cannot be refused by any citizen for the settlement of any transaction or debt. However, other forms of money, like cheques drawn on demand deposits, are not legal tenders and can be refused as a mode of payment.
Legal Definitions: Narrow and Broad Money
The money supply is a stock variable, representing the total stock of money held by the public at a point in time. The RBI publishes four alternative measures of money supply, categorized by their degree of liquidity.
- M1 = CU + DD
where CU is Currency (notes plus coins) held by the public and DD is Net Demand Deposits held by commercial banks. M1 is the most liquid measure and is considered narrow money.
- M2 = M1 + Savings deposits with Post Office savings banks
This is also a measure of narrow money.
- M3 = M1 + Net Time Deposits of commercial banks
Time deposits, such as Fixed Deposits (FDs), are less liquid than demand deposits. M3 is the most commonly used measure of money supply and is considered broad money. It is also known as aggregate monetary resources.
- M4 = M3 + Total deposits with Post Office savings organisations (excluding National Savings Certificates)
This is the broadest but least liquid measure of money supply.
Demonetisation
The Initiative
Demonetisation is the act of stripping a currency unit of its status as legal tender. On November 8, 2016, the Government of India undertook one of the most significant and disruptive economic policy measures in its recent history by announcing the demonetisation of the two highest denomination currency notes in circulation at the time.
Under this policy, the existing currency notes of ₹500 and ₹1000 denominations were declared to be no longer valid as legal tender, effective from midnight. This single move invalidated approximately 86% of the country's currency in circulation by value. The public was given a specific time window (until December 30, 2016) to deposit these old notes into their bank accounts or exchange them for new currency. To replace the withdrawn currency, new Mahatma Gandhi Series banknotes in the denominations of ₹500 and a new, higher denomination of ₹2000 were introduced.
Objectives and Impact
The government stated several key objectives for this drastic measure, primarily aimed at curbing the "shadow" or parallel economy that operates on unaccounted cash transactions.
Stated Objectives
- Combating Black Money: The primary goal was to nullify unaccounted wealth, or "black money," which was believed to be hoarded in the form of high-denomination cash notes. The move would either force this illicit cash into the formal banking system, where it could be taxed and tracked, or render it worthless if not deposited.
- Fighting Corruption: High-value notes are often the preferred medium for illicit transactions and bribes. Demonetisation was intended to make such transactions more difficult.
- Curbing Terrorism Financing: The policy aimed to disrupt the flow of cash that was allegedly being used to fund terrorist and other illicit activities.
- Eliminating Fake Currency: The move was also intended to eliminate the large stock of counterfeit ₹500 and ₹1000 notes that were in circulation and damaging the formal economy.
The move was highly controversial and had widespread, immediate, and long-term impacts on the economy and society.
Immediate Impacts and Criticisms (Negative Consequences)
- Severe Cash Crunch and Public Hardship: The immediate withdrawal of 86% of the currency led to a massive liquidity shock. Citizens faced immense hardship, standing in long queues for hours and even days outside banks and ATMs to deposit old notes and withdraw the limited amounts of new currency available.
- Adverse Impact on Economic Activities: The cash shortage caused a significant disruption to economic activity, particularly in sectors that are heavily dependent on cash transactions. The informal sector, agriculture, construction, and small retail businesses were hit the hardest. This led to a temporary but sharp slowdown in GDP growth in the quarters following the announcement.
Long-Term Impacts and Appreciations (Positive Consequences)
Over time, several positive outcomes of the policy have been highlighted:
- Improved Tax Compliance: The exercise forced a large amount of undeclared cash into the banking system. Individuals and firms depositing large sums of money came under the scrutiny of tax authorities, leading to a widening of the tax base and an increase in the number of income tax filers in subsequent years.
- Formalization of the Economy: It channelized a significant portion of individual savings from physical cash into the formal financial system. The massive surge in bank deposits strengthened the capital base of banks, allowing them to lower lending rates and increase the availability of credit.
- Signaling Government's Resolve: The move was seen as a strong demonstration of the state's decision to put a curb on black money and tax evasion, creating a psychological deterrent against future illicit wealth accumulation.
- Push Towards a Cashless Economy: Perhaps the most significant and lasting positive outcome was the tremendous push it gave to digital payments. The scarcity of cash forced households and firms to adopt electronic payment technologies at an unprecedented rate. Systems like the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), mobile wallets (e.g., Paytm), and debit/credit card usage saw exponential growth, fundamentally altering India's payment landscape.
NCERT Questions Solution
Question 1. What is a barter system? What are its drawbacks?
Answer:
A barter system is a system of exchange where goods and services are directly traded for other goods and services without the use of money as an intermediary.
The main drawbacks of a barter system are:
1. Lack of Double Coincidence of Wants: This is the biggest drawback. For an exchange to occur, two individuals must each have a surplus of the good that the other wants. This mutual matching of wants is highly improbable in a large economy, making trade extremely difficult and inefficient.
2. Lack of a Common Unit of Value: In a barter system, there is no standard measure to express the value of goods. The value of each commodity has to be expressed in terms of every other commodity, which is incredibly complex.
3. Difficulty in Storing Wealth: Storing wealth is difficult as most goods (like grains or livestock) are perishable, costly to store, and may lose value over time.
4. Indivisibility of Certain Goods: Many goods, like a live animal, cannot be easily divided into smaller parts to facilitate exchanges of smaller value.
Question 2. What are the main functions of money? How does money overcome the shortcomings of a barter system?
Answer:
Money performs four main functions in a modern economy:
1. Medium of Exchange: It acts as an intermediary in transactions, eliminating the need for a double coincidence of wants.
2. Unit of Account: It provides a common measure of value, allowing the prices of all goods and services to be expressed in a single unit.
3. Store of Value: It allows purchasing power to be transferred from the present to the future. It is durable and has low storage costs.
4. Standard of Deferred Payment: It serves as a standard for future payments, such as in loan agreements and contracts.
Money overcomes the shortcomings of a barter system in the following ways:
- By acting as a medium of exchange, it solves the problem of double coincidence of wants.
- By serving as a unit of account, it provides a common measure of value, making it easy to compare the prices of different goods.
- By being a store of value, it offers a convenient and non-perishable way to store wealth for future use.
- By acting as a standard of deferred payment, it facilitates borrowing, lending, and contracts involving future payments.
Question 3. What is transaction demand for money? How is it related to the value of transactions over a specified period of time?
Answer:
The transaction demand for money is the demand for holding money (cash and demand deposits) for the purpose of conducting day-to-day transactions.
It arises because people's income receipts and expenditure patterns do not perfectly coincide. The transaction demand for money is directly and positively related to the value of transactions over a specified period. The larger the total value of transactions to be made in an economy, the larger the quantity of money people will need to hold to facilitate these exchanges. This can be expressed as:
$M_T^d = k.T$
where $M_T^d$ is the transaction demand for money, T is the total value of transactions, and k is a positive fraction.
Question 4. What are the alternative definitions of money supply in India?
Answer:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) provides four alternative measures of money supply, categorized by decreasing order of liquidity:
M1 (Narrow Money): This is the most liquid measure.
$M1 = CU + DD$ (where CU = Currency with the public, DD = Net Demand Deposits)
M2:
$M2 = M1 + \text{Savings deposits with Post Office savings banks}$
M3 (Broad Money): This is the most commonly used measure.
$M3 = M1 + \text{Net time deposits of commercial banks}$
M4:
$M4 = M3 + \text{Total deposits with Post Office savings organisations}$
Question 5. What is a ‘legal tender’? What is ‘fiat money’?
Answer:
Legal Tender:
A 'legal tender' is a form of money that cannot be legally refused by any citizen of the country for the settlement of any transaction or debt. In India, currency notes and coins are legal tender.
Fiat Money:
'Fiat money' is money whose value is not derived from any intrinsic value of the material it is made of (like gold or silver coins), but rather from a government order or "fiat" that declares it as legal tender. Currency notes and coins are examples of fiat money because their face value is far greater than their material worth.
Question 6. What is High Powered Money?
Answer:
High-Powered Money (also known as the monetary base or reserve money) is the total currency issued by the central bank of a country. It consists of two components:
1. Currency held by the public (notes and coins in circulation).
2. Cash reserves held by commercial banks (both vault cash and deposits with the central bank).
It is called "high-powered" because it forms the basis upon which commercial banks can create a much larger amount of money (credit) through the money multiplier process. The central bank has direct control over the stock of high-powered money.
Question 7. Explain the functions of a commercial bank.
Answer:
A commercial bank is a financial institution that performs several key functions in an economy. The primary functions are:
1. Accepting Deposits: Banks accept deposits from the public in various forms, such as current accounts, savings accounts, and fixed (time) deposits. This is their main liability.
2. Providing Loans (Advancing Credit): Banks lend out a portion of the funds deposited with them to individuals and businesses for various purposes (e.g., home loans, business loans). This is their main asset and source of profit.
3. Credit Creation: Through the process of accepting deposits and advancing loans, commercial banks are able to create credit, which leads to an expansion of the money supply in the economy.
In addition to these, commercial banks also perform secondary functions like agency services (collecting cheques, paying bills) and general utility services (providing lockers, issuing letters of credit).
Question 8. What is money multiplier? What determines the value of this multiplier?
Answer:
The money multiplier is the ratio that measures the maximum amount of commercial bank money (deposits) that can be created for a given unit of central bank money (reserves). It quantifies the extent to which the money supply can expand for every rupee increase in the monetary base.
The value of the money multiplier is determined by the Legal Reserve Ratio (LRR), which is the fraction of deposits that banks are legally required to hold as reserves and cannot lend out. The LRR includes the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) and the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR).
The formula for the money multiplier is:
$\text{Money Multiplier} = \frac{1}{\text{Legal Reserve Ratio (LRR)}}$
A lower LRR leads to a higher money multiplier, allowing for greater credit creation, while a higher LRR restricts it.
Question 9. What are the instruments of monetary policy of RBI?
Answer:
The instruments of monetary policy of the RBI are used to control the money supply and credit in the economy. They can be classified into two categories:
1. Quantitative Instruments (General Tools): These affect the overall volume of credit.
- Bank Rate: The rate at which RBI lends long-term funds to commercial banks.
- Open Market Operations (OMO): The buying and selling of government securities by the RBI to inject or absorb liquidity.
- Repo Rate: The rate at which RBI lends short-term funds to commercial banks.
- Reverse Repo Rate: The rate at which RBI borrows from commercial banks.
- Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR): The fraction of deposits banks must keep with the RBI.
- Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR): The fraction of deposits banks must maintain in specified liquid assets.
2. Qualitative Instruments (Selective Tools): These regulate the direction of credit.
- Margin Requirements: Prescribing the loan-to-value ratio for loans against securities.
- Moral Suasion: Using persuasion to make banks follow the RBI's policy directives.
- Credit Rationing: Imposing ceilings on credit for specific sectors.
Question 10. Do you consider a commercial bank ‘creator of money’ in the economy?
Answer:
Yes, a commercial bank is considered a 'creator of money' in the economy, but not in the sense of printing currency notes.
Commercial banks create money through the process of credit creation. They do this by lending out a portion of the deposits they receive from the public. When a bank makes a loan, it typically creates a new demand deposit in the borrower's name. Since demand deposits are a component of the money supply (M1), this action increases the total stock of money in the economy.
Through the money multiplier effect, the banking system as a whole can expand the initial deposits into a much larger volume of total deposits, thus creating money that did not exist before.
Question 11. What role of RBI is known as ‘lender of last resort’?
Answer:
The role of the RBI as the 'lender of last resort' means that it stands ready to provide liquidity (loans) to a commercial bank when the bank is facing a financial crisis or a severe shortage of funds and is unable to secure loans from any other source.
This function is crucial for maintaining the stability of the banking and financial system. By guaranteeing to provide emergency funds, the RBI prevents bank failures and protects the interests of depositors. This assurance helps to prevent financial panics from spreading throughout the economy.