In economics, the monetary base (also base money, money base, high-powered money, reserve money, or, in the UK, narrow money) is a term relating to (but not being equivalent to) the money supply (or money stock), the amount of money in the economy. The monetary base is highly liquid money that consists of coins, paper money (both as bank vault cash and as currency circulating in the public), and commercial banks' reserves with the central bank. Measures of money are typically classified as levels of M, where the monetary base is smallest and lowest M-level: M0. Base money can be described as the most acceptable (or liquid) form of final payment. Broader measures of the money supply also include money that does not count as base money, such as demand deposits (included in M1), and other deposit accounts like the less liquid savings accounts (included in M2) etc.
(The narrow money supply is an earlier term used in the U.S to describe currency held by the non-bank public and demand deposits of banks, M1).
Read more about Monetary Base: Management
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