This is a Working Paper and the author(s) would welcome any comments on the present text. Citations should refer to a Working Paper o/the International Monetary Fund. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the Fund.

This is a Working Paper and the author would welcome any comments on the present text. Citations should refer to a Working Paper of the International Monetary Fund, mentioning the author, and the date of issuance. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Fund.

The paper presents evidence supporting the existence of a stable money demand relationship for Germany plus a core group of countries—France, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands—that have not realigned their parities against the deutschmark since at least 1987. The predictive power of the core ERM aggregate for French and German inflation is also examined; it is shown that the ERM aggregate is a better predictor of German inflation than the German monetary aggregate alone. Thus, the ERM money supply is a useful indicator for German monetary policy, even if the latter only focuses on achieving domestic inflation targets.

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