货币制度回归金本位的可行性分析

　　摘要：随着时间的推移，国际市场上由于金融危机而引起的轩然大波也渐渐的得到了平息。然而，就在各国都在为经济新一轮的涅槃而摩拳擦掌之时，国际间货币市场却看似余波未平。近年来，美元与他国主要货币之间的汇率持续走低，有些甚至跌至了近四十年来的谷底；而同时，美元汇率的不稳定性也使得美国的主要交易对手普遍对之产生了信任危机。例如，在2008年末，当国际油价在100美元大关处徘徊不定之时，以阿联酋、卡塔尔为代表的一些国家都曾考虑用其他主要货币来替代美元作为国际间油价的计价单位。就在这个时点上，一些知名的经济学家公开呼吁国际社会摒弃美元，回归金本位制。那么，在当今的经济大环境下，回归金本位制是不是一个好的选择？它又有着怎样的可行性？本文通过着重分析回归金本位制的优劣之处，试图对这一个问题进行探讨。
　　关键词：金本位制 国际市场 金融危机
　　
　　Serving as a main coinage for over one century, the gold standard does has its merits. First, the exchange rate fixed under the gold standard successfully avoided the uncertainty caused by the fluctuating rate, which would definitely help to stabilize the world trade. Second, thanks to the symmetry of the gold standard, not a single country could enjoyed its privilege in this system. It is then each country's obligation to intervene its forEign exchange market. Third, since each central bank was asked to pin its gold price at a fixed level, the money supply of a country would never be able to go up more quickly than its actual demand and a country thus could elude the risk of inflation.
　　However, the idea of US dollar returning to the gold standard is merely an impractical windbaggary.
　　Firstly, judging from a historical and philosophic point of view, there are always necessity and objectivity lying in the roads toward the revolution of a certain kind of thing. Actually, the exact reason that paper standard replaced the once prevailing gold standard was that the existence of the gold standard seriously suppressed the development of the world economy. Owing to the limit of the gold reserves in each country and to the low efficiency of the exploitation of gold, the amount of money supply could only share a comparatively slow rise in the gold standard system. Statistic shows that the gold reserves throughout the world was around 386 tons in year 1900 and the annual output of worldwide gold has kept comparatively stable since the middle period of 1990s, at 2500 tons per year. However, the economy aggregate during 20th century 16.4 times faster than that at the end of the 19th century. So it is obvious that the currency system would be unmatched to the fast developing world economy if we sticked to the gold standard. Even though some specialists and scholars advocate that US dollar should and must return to the gold standard at the top of thEIr bent, it is no doubt against the historical trajectory, with the destiny doomed even a century ago.
　　Secondly, the gold standard itself is not an absolutely stable coinage as people generally regard. Even though the monetary system is backed by real gold, the eruption of currency crisis still remains around the corner. As is the case with fixed exchange rate system, once there is a severe misconduct in a country's macroeconomic policies, for example a comparatively high level of government deficit, the exchange speculators will tend to expect the hardship for the government to maintain the price ratio between its currency and gold. Speculators are then likely to run on gold against US dollar in order to keep value and even make profit. Let's take the wild-spread unrest in western countries in year 1960 for example. Because of the anxiety for the further depreciation of US dollar, which was caused by the increasingly intensified fiscal crisis in America, the gold price in London market rocketed straightly from initially 35 dollars per ounce to 40.6 dollars. Besides, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, as well as Canada all suffered from a national panic purchase which was lateer described as one incredibly and unprecedentedly. Even in New York market, the amount of gold bought solely in October 20th reached to a record 20,000,000 dollars. Therefore, taking the gold standard as a countermeasure against the fact of persistently depreciation is on the cards to induce a new term of fluctuation.

　　[8]电大学习网.免费论文网[EB/OL]. /d/file/p/2024/0425/fontbr />　Thirdly, the gold standard will render tougher and tougher questions, bring about vicious circles if not handled properly, and finally cause a systemic recession all around the world. For one thing, a central bank can not regulate gross requirement via dominating gross money supply under the gold standard. As a result, when a country is suffering from a decline in its economy, the central bank could not help to stimulate the national demand or to spur the economical performance and the decline in economy will eventually lead to an overall stagnancy with the time-lapse. For another, because of the confinement to the amount of gold, all the countries around the world will endeavor to improve thEir production level to achieve a larger quota of the global gold. According to the Fisher Equation (P×Y=M×V), as the national output increases, the price for unite product and work force is getting lower and lower. This will cause a worldwide unemployment and then break the internal balance of an open economy, leading to a low efficiency of the global economical operation.
　　Last but not least, although the gold standard avoids the natural asymmetry that the reserve currency possesses, this kind of system also has the unique weak point. Because gold mines of different sizes scatter all around the world as rare mineral resources, the practice of the gold standard will endow the world's major gold producers, such as Russia and South Africa, as well as the biggest gold reservers, for instance America and Germany, higher economic influences than the rest of the countries. In this case, the major gold producers will have the privilege to choose whether they should slow down or even stop thEIr exploitation of gold as the gold price drops to a certain level. Their richness in the natural resources helps ensure them the chance to control the amount of the world currency. In the meantime, the major gold reservers can also obtain the economic cutokuan under gold standard on the basis of the gold holdings. However, this kind of authority has nothing to do with their economic outputs and the contribution to the outside world. By acting like this, the enthusiasm of the other countries for being engaged in their economic activities will be deeply hurt, thus giving birth to a new generation of worldwide economic hegemony.
　　[Conclusion]: As a matter of fact, other than the four main points just mentioned hereinbefore, there still lays a variety of barriers crying for being cleared if US dollar is determined to return to the gold standard. For example, in the last decades, America has issued a large number of national debts in order to make up for its huge government deficit. Then, what course should the other creditor nations follow if US dollar is no longer a world reserve currency? Besides, what the exactly actions should each government takes to reestablish the once lost faith among the people? All these reality-based problems and immense uncertainty make the return of the US dollar to the gold standard simply a wildest dream. Simultaneously, since Euro has suffered quite lot recently in dealing with the Greek crisis of external debts, while Chinese dollar, as one of the most promising new world reserve currencies, hasn't yet been ready to get convertible, US dollar still occupies an overwhelming status in today's international money market. So, in my point of view, we'd better preserve the monetary system we shared today, while trying to built up the authority and influence for the next potential world reserve currency, rather than dream of returning back to the doomed gold standard.
　　
　　Reference lists:
　　[1]《 International Economics Theory And Policy》Paul R.Krugman & Maurice Obstfeld Qinghua University Press 2008
　　[2]《货币银行学》戴国强 上海财经大学出版社 2006
　　[3]《大国金融方略：中国金融强国的战略和方向》 徐洪才 机械工业出版社
　　[4]"The Collapse of the Gold Standard"
　　http://www.chinavalue.net/Wiki/ShowContent.aspx?TitleID=408133
　　[5]"The Gold Standard Is Impossible To Return To Return China and Need Not Purchase IMF To Sell Gold"
　　http://www.leobbsx.net/news/financial/201004/13753.html
　　[8]电大学习网.免费论文网[EB/OL]. /d/file/p/2024/0425/fontbr />