ABSTRACT
This quotation stands as an ample description of the role that financial institutions can play in the development process. In addition, it must be supplemented that although money is not needed for its own sake, there appears to be a direct relationship between the degree of monetization of an economy and the level of its development. In other words, there must be some truth in the contention of some monetary economists that money yields both productivity and utility.2 Indeed, the controversy about whether money does or does not matter vanishes when money in growth models is discussed. For example, Milton Friedman, who will argue in comparative static analysis that in the long run a change in money supply will not affect real variables, recognizes an optimum rate of growth of the money supply consistent with the rate of growth of income. Indeed, as the survey by Stein indicates, money plays a positive role in the growth of an economy. A money economy is obviously more efficient and productive than a barter economy.3
