再论黄金的货币属性及其在货币国际化进程中的作用

【作者】 姬明；

【导师】 连平；

【作者基本信息】 上海社会科学院 ， 世界经济， 2014， 博士

【摘要】 当前国际货币体系存在特里芬两难,储备货币发行国更为关注国内政策,不愿承担全球责任,造成了数次严重的金融危机。最近的金融危机表明,增持外汇储备仍然不足以维护发展中国家的经济金融稳定。国际货币体系是国际政治体系的延续,纸黄金等超主权货币的改革方向不具备现实可行性,货币局制度、区域货币都不适合中国国情。作为全球第二大经济体,推动人民币国际化是当前国际货币体系下维护中国金融稳定、实现经济可持续发展的必然选择。不论从历史还是从现实来看,黄金的货币属性始终存在,近年来多国增持黄金储备的行动表明黄金在国际储备中的地位有所增强,其在经济金融危机发生时期的地位和作用不可忽视,而黄金的货币属性又是其发挥作用的基础的前提。实现一国货币国际化有诸多条件。除了经济实力、金融市场的成熟度、流动性和国际化、资本账户的开放程度等因素,货币价值稳定的可信度是其中的重要方面。在当前信用货币体系下,如何提升币值稳定的可信度,央行资产质量是关键因素之一。黄金储备作为央行资产的重要组成部分,有助于增加一国货币的可信度并对货币国际化具有一定作用。本文主要从以下几个角度对黄金储备在货币国际化中的作用进行了分析：一是从中央银行资产负债表的视角,通过比较中国与主要储备货币发行国资产负债表的差异,提出中国作为发展中国家,在国债评级不高的情况下,增持黄金有助于降低我国的主权债务违约概率,提高中央银行资产质量,从而对提升人民币的可信度有积极作用。二是从英镑、美元和欧元等货币国际化的历程来看,英国和美国实施的与黄金挂钩以及欧元实施的持有充足的黄金储备的政策有助于提升英镑、美元和欧元价值稳定的可信度,并对其最终成为国际货币发挥了重要作用。三是黄金的货币属性在国际贸易等国际支付领域以及金融危机、政治冲突等时期尤为凸显。相较于其他主权货币,黄金货币属性的这一特点,使得人们更愿意相信那些持有大量黄金储备的央行危机时的国际支付能力、偿债能力,并相信持有该国货币的退出机制能够得到有效保障,从而提升一国货币价值的可信度。四是实证分析了黄金有助于中央银行资产的保值增值,从而提高一国货币可信度。作者通过研究发现：黄金能够较好地对冲美元汇率贬值的风险,美元黄金价格和美元指数明显负相关；黄金可以对抗通货膨胀,格兰杰因果检验结果表明,物价指数和金价间存在长期稳定的均衡关系,且物价指数是金价波动的格兰杰原因。黄金与中央银行其他配置资产的相关性较低,增持黄金有利于提高中国央行储备资产组合收益。我们运用资产组合优化中的样本有效优化技术,发现在相同的风险水平下,包含黄金的储备资产组合收益要高于不含黄金的组合收益,并测算了各种风险容忍度下中国的最优黄金储备持有比例。在此基础上,最后本文提出在人民币国际化的背景下,应适当增加黄金储备的建议,但在现行条件下直接增持央行储备不是最优选择,可实施“藏金于民”战略,通过增加民间黄金储备以促进国家黄金储备总量的增加,并基于这一战略提出发展我国黄金市场的政策建议。关于黄金的货币属性、储备职能及其与货币国际化的关系,已有一些学者进行了研究,但鲜有研究对黄金储备对于货币国际化的作用的深层次原因进行探讨。本文的创新之处主要在于：一是通过中央银行资产负债表的分析视角,探讨增持黄金对于提高人民币价值稳定的可信度及人民币国际化的作用。二是系统的从历史的视角,分析了黄金在英镑、美元、欧元等货币国际化的作用以及黄金区别于其他主权货币的货币属性特点,定性分析了黄金对提高货币可信度及对一国货币国际化的作用机制。三是构建了定量分析模型,分析了持有黄金储备对于中央银行对抗美元贬值和储备货币国当前量化宽松政策的效果,并根据马克维兹最优组合理论计算出中央银行在不同风险容忍度下的最优黄金持有比例,用实证分析方法从提高央行资产质量的角度论证了黄金对于提高一国货币可信度的作用机制。更多还原

【Abstract】 Triffin Dilemma always exists in modern international monetary system. The reserve currency issuing countries pay more attention to the domestic policy, unwilling to take any responsibility for the world, which caused a number of serious financial crises. The recent financial crisis shows that increasing the foreign exchange reserves is still not enough to maintain the economic and financial stability. The international monetary system is a continuation of the international political system. The reform direction of the super-sovereign currency such as paper gold is not feasible. The currency board system and the regional currency are not suitable for Chinese conditions. As the second largest economy in the world, promoting RMB internationalization is the inevitable choice of maintaining Chinese financial stability and realizing the sustainable economic development for China.Realization of a country’s currency internationalization needs many conditions. In addition to economic strength, maturity, liquidity and internationalization of financial market, capital account liberalization degree, the credibility of the currency value stability is also one of the important aspects. In the current credit monetary system, the asset quality of the central bank is one of the key factors to improve the credibility of currency value stability. As an important part of the central bank’s assets, the gold reserves help to increase a country’s monetary credibility and have certain effect on the monetary internationalization.The monetary attribute of gold already existed many years ago, and it still exits nowadays. Many countries add gold in their foreign reserve portfolio in recent years, which is a signal that gold reserve is more and more important in the international monetary system. This paper analyzes the role of gold in the currency internationalization from the following perspectives. Firstly, from the perspective of the central bank’s balance sheet, by comparing Chinese and the major reserve currency issuing countries’balance sheets, it puts forward that as a developing country, in the case of the government bond rating is not high, increasing holdings of gold is helpful to improve the Chinese central bank’s asset quality, and plays a positive role in improving the reliability of RMB. Secondly, throughout the internationalization progresses of the pound and dollar, the policy of Britain and the United States that linked to gold and holding adequate gold reserves helps to improve the credibility of pound and dollar value stability, and plays an important role in their becoming international currencies eventually. Thirdly, the monetary attribute of gold is particularly prominent in the international trade and international payments, and in the financial crisis and political conflicts. Compared to other currencies, the monetary attribute of gold makes people more willing to believe the international payment ability and debt paying ability of the central banks that they have a lot of gold reserves in the crises, and believe that the withdrawal mechanism of holding their currencies can be effectively guaranteed, so as to enhance the credibility of a nation’s currency value. Fourthly, the empirical analysis shows that gold helps the central bank’s asset value, thereby to improve monetary credibility.Our study found that gold could hedge against dollar devaluation risk. The dollar price of gold and the dollar index are negatively correlated, so gold can hedge against inflation. Grainger causality test results show that, there is a long-term stable equilibrium between the price index and the gold price, and the price index is the Grainger reason of gold price fluctuation. Correlation between gold and other central bank allocated assets is low, so increasing gold reserves is helpful to improve the income of Chinese central bank’s reserve portfolio. By the sample efficiency optimization technique in the portfolio optimization theory, we found that on the same level of risk, the asset portfolio including gold returned more than the portfolio excluding gold, and we calculated the optimal holding rate of gold for Chinese central bank under the various risk tolerance. On this basis, finally this paper suggested that China should appropriately increase the gold reserves. But under the current conditions increasing gold reserves directly by central bank is not the best choice, so China can implement the "gold held by people" strategy, through increasing nongovernmental gold reserves to increase the national gold reserves. Based on this strategy we introduced the policy recommendations for the development of Chinese gold market.On the relationship between gold reserve and the internationalization of RMB, some scholars have studied, but little research on the deep-seated reasons of gold’s role for currency internationalization is discussed. This paper made some innovations on that. Firstly, through the analysis of the central bank’s balance sheet, it discussed the effect of increasing gold holdings on improving the credibility and the internationalization of RMB. Next, from the historical perspective, it analyzed the gold’s role in the internationalizations of pound and dollar, and the monetary attribute of the gold different from other sovereign currencies, and qualitatively analyzed how gold improve the monetary credibility and internationalization. Last, this paper built a quantitative analysis model to calculate the effect of increasing gold reserves, for the central bank against the dollar devaluation and the quantitative easing policy of the reserve currency issuing countries. According to the Harry M. Markowitz optimum portfolio theory, it calculated the optimal gold holdings for central banks under different risk tolerances. And we also made an empirically analysis on the mechanism of gold to improve monetary credibility from the viewpoint of enhancing central bank asset quality.更多还原