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This book discusses the theory, methods, and applications of flow of funds analysis. The book integrates the basic principles of economic statistics, financial accounts, international finance, econometric models, and financial network analysis, providing a systematic and comprehensive introduction to the interconnection between these research fields. It thus provides the reader with the intellectual groundwork indispensable for understanding the workings and interactions of today's globalized financial markets. The main focus of the book is how to observe the flow of funds in macroeconomics, how to measure the global flow of funds (GFF), and how to use GFF data to carry out an analysis. Based on the statistical framework for measuring GFF under the System of National Accounts, the book identifies the systematic relationship of financial linkages among economic sectors and with the rest of the world while integrating data sources that include stock data, geographically broken down by country–region, and selected financial instruments. It sets out the GFF concept and constructs a GFF matrix (metadata) on a from-whom-to-whom basis within a country-by-country pattern. Lastly, an established GFF matrix table is used to conduct an empirical study including an econometric model and financial network analysis.

Based on the crisis experience, the book offers an overview of lessons for macrofinancial analysis and financial stability. It illustrates the interlinkages between the financial side and the real side of the economy and highlights the role of balance sheet variables and sectoral balance sheet positions in the evolution of the financial crisis.

Provides a comprehensive overview of a broad range of uses of the flow of funds within the central bank community as well as in the academic field, prepared by international experts in the field. Based on the crisis experience, it offers an overview of lessons for macrofinancial analysis and financial stability.

The central emphasis in the book is on the transaction and the constraints that its architecture imposes on a discussion of monetary theory and policy. Because of their comprehensiveness and discipline the flow-of-funds accounts are the ideal vehicle for theorizing about real and financial interaction. Such int- action can best be understood when real and financial transac­ tions are expressed in a common flow dimension. Each decision by economic agents is seen as two-ended in terms of markets: one market supplies the source of funds and the second market absorbs these funds. A matrix of interdependent markets is featured throughout the theoretical discussion. Credit markets, and the bank credit market in particular, become the source of disturbance in the theoretical model, but the necessary involve­ ment of the money market is also stressed. Theories of finan­ cial instability and crisis now receiving considerable attention are part of the more general theory of the flow of funds. The rationale for the monetary authority to target credit rather than the monetary aggregates emerges from the analytical discus­ sion. A flow-constrained analysis clarifies interest-rate deter­ mination, provides a helpful format for discussing equilibrium and disequilibrium, integrates credit markets with the familiar IS-LM framework, and identifies a class of missing equations in macro-monetary theory. The prototype of the missing equations is an equation explaining monetary dissaving in terms of a series of arguments only one of which will be the stock of real balances or real wealth.