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be possible to estimate the transactions and precautionary demand for money. The extent to which the money supply exceeds this combined transactions and precautionary demand determines the amount of money left over to satisfy the speculative demand. If the transactions and precautionary demands are estimated at 80 million during a certain time period, and the money supply is fixed at 100 million, then the speculative demand is 20 million. In Keynes's time it was mainly wealthy or high-income earning individuals who operated speculative balances, but in the modern economy this role has been assumed more by institutions which manage contractual savings held in pension funds, life assurance contracts, and the like. These speculative balances are available for the purchase of types of wealth such as financial assets, since wealth held as money, although it has the advantage of being perfectly liquid, earns no rate of return. Thus speculative balances will be held in anticipation of the purchase of non-monetary assets at some future date. A crucial Keynesian assumption is that if holders of speculative money balances decide to hold their wealth in some other form,