A Comprehensive Revision of the U.S. Monetary Services (Divisia) Indexes

The authors introduce a comprehensive revision of the Divisia monetary aggregates for the United States published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, referred to as the Monetary Services Indexes (MSI). These revised MSI are available at five levels of aggregation, including a new broad level of aggregation that includes all of the assets currently reported on the Federal Reserve’s H.6 statistical release. Several aspects of the new MSI differ from those previously published. One such change is that the checkable and savings deposit components of the MSI are now adjusted for the effects of retail sweep programs, beginning in 1994. Another change is that alternative MSI are provided using two alternative benchmark rates. In addition, the authors have simplified the procedure used to construct the own rate of return for small-denomination time deposits and have discontinued the previous practice of applying an implicit return to some or all demand deposits. The revised indexes begin in 1967 rather than 1960 because of data limitations. (JEL C43, C82, E4, E50)