Using a standard overlapping generations monetary production economy, faced with endogenously determined tax evasion by heterogeneous agents in the economy, we provide a theoretical model that indicates that both a lower (higher) level of financial development and a higher (lower) level of inflation leads to a bigger (smaller) shadow economy. These findings are empirically tested within a panel econometric framework, using data collected for 150 countries over the period 1980−2009 to enable a broad generalisation of the results. The results support the developed theoretical model, even after having accounted for the differences in the levels of economic development, the level of institutional quality that includes different tax regimes and regulatory frameworks, central bank participation in the economy as well as different macroeconomic policies.JEL Classification: C61, E26, P16 Keywords: Informal economy, financial development, inflation. * We would like to thank two anonymous referees for many helpful comments that tremendously improved the quality of the paper. However, any remaining errors are solely ours.

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Evidence in favor of the monetary model of exchange rate determination for the South African Rand is, at best, mixed. A co-integrating relationship between the nominal exchange rate and monetary fundamentals forms the basis of the monetary model. With the econometric literature suggesting that the span of the data, not the frequency, determines the power of the co-integration tests and the studies on South Africa primarily using short-span data from the post-Bretton Woods era, we decided to test the long-run monetary model of exchange rate determination for the South African Rand relative to the US Dollar using annual data from 1910 – 2010. The results provide some support for the monetary model in that long-run co-integration is found between the nominal exchange rate and the output and money supply deviations. However, the theoretical restrictions required by the monetary model are rejected. A vector error-correction model identifies both the nominal exchange rate and the monetary fundamentals as the channel for the adjustment process of deviations from the long-run equilibrium exchange rate. A subsequent comparison of nominal exchange rate forecasts based on the monetary model with those of the random walk model suggests that the forecasting performance of the monetary model is superior

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Conventional models of social status purport a positive inflationgrowth relationship, and attribute this empirical contradiction to the presence of a consumers desire for social status. These models are dominated by a substitution effect of money holdings for capital holdings, as an increase in the inflation rate due to money growth raises the cost of holding money and depresses the real money holdings. Using a monetary endogenous growth model, the effects of wealthinduced social status on long-run growth is reconsidered. The analysis is enhanced through the addition of a competitive banking sector that intermediates the available capital in the economy, subject to a mandatory cash reserve requirement. The cash reserve requirement creates a wedge between the deposit rate and the loan rate. While the real loan rate is tied with the constant marginal product of capital, the real deposit rate is negatively related to the rate of inflation. This leads to another, opposing substitution effect of deposit holdings for real money holdings and hence, increases the cost of holding deposits as inflation increases. The consolidated theoretical model described herein supports a diverse range of theoretical findings, contingent on the presence of wealth effects or the spirit of capitalism, using a simpler and more tractable framework that accounts for the role of the banking system in monetary policy decision outcomes. Significantly, as long as the mandatory reserve requirement imposed on the banking system by the monetary authority exceeds a (small) critical value, an increase in the money growth rate will lead to a decrease in the long-run growth rate of the economy. * Manuscript received 5.6.16; final version received 9.10.17. † We would like to thank two anonymous referees for many helpful comments. However, any remaining errors are solely ours.