Optimal monetary policy with heterogeneous money holdings

We study the optimal anticipated policy in a pure-currency economy with flexible prices and a nondegenerate distribution of money holdings. The economy features a business cycle and lump-sum monetary injections have distributional effects that depend on the state of the cycle. We parsimoniously characterize the dynamics of the economy and study the optimal regulation of the money supply as a function of the state under commitment. The optimal policy prescribes monetary expansions in recessions, when insurance is most needed by the cash-poor unproductive agents. Conversely, the optimal policy prescribes monetary contractions during booms, so that the inflationary effect of the occasional expansions is undone. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. JEL classification: E50