Monetary base
The monetary base is defined as the total value of all currency (banknotes and coins) outside the central bank and commercial banks' (net) reserves with the central bank. The monetary base is a debt in the balance sheet of the central bank. Its assets are mostly comprised of the foreign exchange and gold reserves and bonds issued by the national government. Currency inside the central bank has no value - it is comparable to an “I owe you” written by yourself and held by yourself.
Since the central bank has a monopoly on issuing currency, it is in complete control of the monetary base. Soon i will describe exactly how they change the monetary base. However, the central bank does not completely control the money supply. This is due to the second component of the money supply - bank deposits - which it cannot control. Fortunately, it has methods of influencing the total money supply and these methods will be discussed in the nearest future.
In many countries, the central bank imposes reserve requirements. Tins means that commercial banks are obliged to hold a certain percentage of deposits as reserves either as currency in their vaults or as a deposit at the central bank. Reserve requirements are usually rather small (typically between 0% and 10%) which means that the monetary base is quite close to the value of all currency outside the central bank.
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