Monetary Services Index

The Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis produces up-to-date Monetary Services Index (MSI) numbers on a regular basis. Production of these data may lag by a short time due to the publication schedule of the monetary aggregates M1, M2, M3 and L by the Board of Governors.

Data for two of the components used in the calculation of L, savings bonds and short term treasuries, are temporarily unavailable. MSI-L will not be computed until further notice.

News

Please Note: As of April 14, 2006, the MSI series will not be updated until we complete revisions to the code to handle the discontinuance of M3.

The FRB St. Louis has created an Advisory Board to provide continuous feedback on improvements to the Bank's U.S. monetary services index data.

The FRB St. Louis MSI data are being revised to improve our measures of holding period yields used in calculating user costs. Although preliminary data and programs have been posted on this page, the data are not final and may be further revised in the near future.

As of September 17, 2004, Benchmark revisions to the Monetary Services Indexes are available. A working paper discussing the revisions is forthcoming.

Advisory Board

Members:
William Barnett, University of Kansas
Jane Binner, Aston University, Birmingham, UK
Adrian Fleissig, University of California-Fullerton
Barry Jones, Binghamton University (SUNY)
Travis Nesmith, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Articles

The MSI measure the flow of monetary services received each period by households from their holdings of monetary assets (levels of the indexes are sometimes referred to as Divisia monetary aggregates). The theory and methodology of these indexes are presented in three papers by Richard Anderson, Barry Jones, and Travis Nesmith in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, January/February 1997. The first paper introduces the MSI, the second paper surveys the relevant monetary aggregation theory, and the third details construction of the indexes and sources of the raw data.

Revisions to User Costs for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Monetary Services Indices by Richard G. Anderson and Jason Buol, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, November/December 2005. This analysis discusses recent changes to the user cost figures that are computed as part of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis monetary services indices (MSI). The authors first introduce an alternative splicing procedure, robust to differences in scale between series, for those price subindices which, individually, have a time span shorter than the overall MSI but are spliced to span the entire period. They then correct an error in the calculation of user costs for money market mutual funds that caused these funds' user costs to be based, for a considerable period of time, on the last-reported value for one input data series. Finally, the authors also restore the yield-curve adjustment for composite assets, which they removed from published data during 2004 as they explored the unusual behavior of the user cost data for small-denomination time deposits.

MSI Data

MSI data are provided on this server in 4 zipped (compressed) files. Each zipped file contains worksheets (.wks) that show seasonally adjusted and seasonally unadjusted data. Separate indexes are provided for each frequency because it is inappropriate to time-average the indexes: Rather, indexes at different frequencies should be constructed from appropriately time-aggregated data. All indexes are available at the same four levels of aggregation as the Federal Reserve Board's monetary aggregates: M1, M2, M3, and L. Indexes for M1A and a MZM are also included. CAUTION: MSI indexes labeled seasonally adjusted are calculated from individually seasonally adjusted components while the overall indexes are not seasonally adjusted.

MSIAm.zip (about 177K): This file contains monthly data on the variables shown in Section A of Table 1 in the third article by Anderson, Jones and Nesmith: the nominal expenditure on monetary services, the nominal (Törnqvist-Theil) monetary services index, the real user cost index dual to the nominal (Törnqvist-Theil) monetary services index, the currency equivalent index, and the simple sum index. (Table 1 in Adobe pdf format.) A text file that describes each series is also included.

MSIAq.zip(about 83K): This file contains quarterly and annual data on the variables shown in Section A of Table 1 in the third article by Anderson, Jones and Nesmith: the nominal expenditure on monetary services, the nominal (Törnqvist-Theil) monetary services index, the real user cost index dual to the nominal (Törnqvist-Theil) monetary services index, the currency equivalent index, and the simple sum index. (Table 1 in Adobe pdf format.) A text file that describes each series is also included.

MSIBm.zip (about 345K): This file contains monthly data on the variables shown in Section B of Table 1 in the third article by Anderson, Jones and Nesmith: the nominal monetary services index, the real (Törnqvist-Theil) user cost index, the (Törnqvist-Theil) expenditure share index, the Divisia quantity growth rate variance, the Divisia user cost growth rate variance, the Divisia expenditure share growth rate variance, and the Divisia quantity/use r cost growth rate covariance. A text file that describes each series also is included.

MSIBq.zip (about 143K): This file contains quarterly and annual data on the variables shown in Section B of Table 1 in the third article by Anderson, Jones and Nesmith: the nominal monetary services index, the real (Törnqvist-Theil) user cost index, the (Törnqvist-Theil) expenditure share index, the Divisia quantity growth rate variance, the Divisia user cost growth rate variance, the Divisia expenditure share growth rate variance, and the Divisia quantity/user cost growth rate covariance. A text file that describes each series also is included. CAUTION: MSI indexes labeled seasonally adjusted are calculated from individually seasonally adjusted components while the overall index is not seasonally adjusted.

Input Data

MSINPUT.zip (about 307K): This zipped file contains two worksheets and a text file describing the adjusted and unadjusted (raw) input data used to compute the MSI, including asset quantities, user costs, and the benchmark interest rate. The file "adjsam.wks" contains seasonally adjusted data, and the file "adjnsam.wks" contains not seasonally adjusted data. The text file "adjread.txt" explains the variables in the files. Note: the user costs and benchmark rate are the same in both files.

MSIDATAH.zip ( 100K ): Historical data used in Rats program to calculate the MSI series.

MSIDATAR.zip ( 80K ): Revised data used in Rats program to calculate the MSI series.

Computer Programs

MSRATS.zip (69K): The computer programs, in Rats version 4.2, plus a descriptive file "programs.txt."

Data from Previous Divisia Research

Data and programs available prior to the benchmark revisions of September 17, 2004 (data through April 2004).

Divisia Monetary Aggregates -- through 1992

Questions or comments can be sent to: