Economists ought to take money more seriously in their thinking, the Bank for International Settlements’s Claudio Borio argues in a new paper, setting out a framework for thinking more clearly about the monetary system.

“Bar a few who have sailed into these waters, money has been allowed to sink by the macroeconomics profession. And with little or no regrets,” the head of the BIS monetary and economic department says. “Today, I would like to raise it from the seabed.”

In the paper, published