品一品人民币国际化的味道

人民币已成为全球第四大支付货币，紧随美元、欧元和英镑。

之前，中国央行曾经就是否明确承诺取消资本管制，而进行过探讨。这些管制措施使得人民币不能按市场确定的价格与其他货币自由兑换。

如是种种是否意味着人民币终于要进入全盛时代呢？很难这样说。

人们将发现，和媒体报道相比，上述现象以及人民币成为国际货币基金组织（IMF）官方储备货币的消息并没有那么大的影响。

小巫见大巫

人民币在全球支付中占的比重仍很小。确切地说，2015年9月份这个数字为2.45%，8月份的数值略高一些，为2.79%，居全球第四位。这还不到英镑所占比重（9%）的三分之一，欧元占比（29%）的十分之一，和美元的份额（43%）相比更是小巫见大巫。

要衡量一种货币在国际上的普及程度，另一个指标是外汇储备占比，它是国际贸易顺差积累的结果。

尽管中国和美国在世界贸易中所占的比重相当（约12%），但人民币在其他国家/地区的外汇储备中只占1%，美元则占64%。

换句话说，人民币在国际支付和外汇储备中的比重并不像中国在世界贸易中的份量那么重；同样的，美元在这方面的占比则超过了美国在世界贸易中的比重，原因是美国资本市场规模庞大、流动性强而且安全，广受投资者和政府青睐。

单从市场力量的角度判断，人民币的份量应该逐渐加重，美元占比则应逐步下降。

在贸易和投资中，收付款双方使用同一种货币可以降低交易成本、货币风险和潜在波动。因此，随着和中国贸易往来的增加，想使用人民币的人就会增多。

开始远离贸易

今后，中国在全球GDP中的比重（2014年名义占比为13.3%）很可能上升，原因是中国经济增速仍高于其他大型经济体的平均水平。但人民币在国际支付和外汇储备中的普及率可能上升的较慢，原因是中国正在远离以贸易为动力的经济发展模式。

出现这种情况是因为中国打算减少对出口拉动型增长的依赖，并提高国内消费在GDP中的占比（目前这个比值非常低）。

尽管到目前为止几乎还没有迹象表明正在出现这种局面，但如果在这方面取得成功，那就意味着贸易占中国GDP的比重将减轻，也可能意味着人民币得到更广泛应用的速度将低于过去一段时间的水平。

成为储备货币路途艰难

要真正成为IMF认可的官方储备货币，中国必须满足多项标准，从而使人民币“可以自由使用”，也就是说，任何人在任何时候都可以买卖人民币。

这些标准包括由市场决定的利率、汇率灵活性和货币可兑换性、更开放的资本项目以及在官方储备、国际银行债务和全球债务证券中占据相当大的份额。尽管中国已经为此采取了许多措施，而且最近还在这样做，但就任何一条标准而言，中国距离完全达标都还有很大的差距。

这些标准都要求改革并放开国内金融市场，这样做在政治和技术上都有难度。这些改革会削弱政府为了维持稳定和促进增长而制定政策的能力。这是因为国际金融领域存在“三元悖论”，也就是说，货币政策的三大目标——控制利率、保持汇率灵活性和资本流动性——在任何时候都只能同时实现两个。

市场干预

中国政府2015年夏天面对金融市场剧烈波动而采取的措施表明，它尚未准备好实施或完成诸多必须的改革。

对市场的干预表明中国政府还不愿意让市场力量来主导人民币和金融市场。这些干预行动包括对估值偏高的股市的暴跌进行遏制，以及用20年来前所未见的力度下调人民币中间价。说到股市，政府也曾助推此前的A股泡沫。

信任要自己争取

如今，IMF已经把人民币指定为储备货币，但这并不意味着人民币将迅速而且广泛地发挥储备货币功能。只有建立了对货币的信心，各国央行和个人投资者才会使用或持有人民币。

要做到这一点，中国金融市场就必须在深度、多元性、透明度和安全性方面达到美国的水平，美元正是藉此保持着全球最受欢迎储备货币的地位，并未受到美国在全球贸易和投资中占比下降的影响。

如果某种货币受政治因素主导，而不是由市场力量左右，其他政府就不愿将其纳入外汇储备，这可以理解。

市场参与者的信任，必然是靠日积月累赢得的，仅凭IMF这样的国际机构授权无法做到这一点。

利与弊

对于一种货币来说，只有当它在国际货币体系中得到了更广泛地应用，或者说实现了国际化，才会带来一系列好处。

其中之一是铸币红利，也就是货币发行国因货币价值高于铸币成本而得到的收益。其他好处还包括货币政策更宽松（更能促进增长），从而使经济发展速度有所加快，以及可以用本币进行国际借贷和投资，从而避免货币风险。

但也会出现一些不利影响，比如失去对货币政策有效性的控制，以及让国内经济暴露在不稳定（而且波动越发剧烈）的全球资本流动面前。

正是出于这个原因，本币颇受国际投资者青睐的小型开放经济体，如新加坡和瑞士，长期以来一直拒绝国际化。相反，中国似乎认为人民币成为储备货币对自己有利，而且这样的“地位”代表着中国希望赢得的威信。

长期而言，人民币在国际上得到更广泛的使用将使中国和世界经济同时受益。中国将受益于国际化所需的国内金融市场改革，世界其他地区则会在贸易支付、投资和货币储备方面得到一个更多元化的货币篮子，从而改变目前过度依赖美元的局面。

这应该还有助于避免各国之间出现长期而且过大的贸易和金融不平衡。

但在此之前，中国需要对国内金融体系实施重大改革，这项工作不会进展的很快，也不会容易，更不会有完全的把握。（财富中文网）

琳达•利姆是密歇根大学战略学教授。本文最初刊登在网站theconversation.com上。

译者：Charlie

校对：詹妮

China’s currency, the yuan, became the world’s fourth-most-used form of payment, behind the U.S. dollar, euro and pound sterling, having (marginally) pushed past the Japanese yen.

China’s central bank discussed whether to make an explicit pledge to dismantle the capital controls that prevent the yuan from becoming fully convertible with other currencies at rates determined by the market.

Does all this mean the yuan’s heyday has finally arrived? Hardly.

As we will see, there is less significance to this phenomenon — and talk of the yuan becoming an “official IMF reserve currency” — than media headlines suggest.

A drop in the bucket

The yuan still accounts for a small fraction of world payments, 2.45%, to be precise in September after edging up to 2.79% — and fourth place — a month earlier. This is less than a third of the pound’s 9% share, a tenth of the euro’s 29% and a drop in the bucket of the dollar’s 43%.

Another measure of a currency’s international prevalence is in foreign exchange reserves, which result from the accumulation of export surpluses.

The yuan accounts for just 1% of other countries’ allocated reserves, compared with 64% for the dollar, even though China accounts for the same share of world trade (about 12%) as the U.S.

In other words, the yuan is underrepresented in payments and reserves relative to its share of world trade, while the dollar is similarly overrepresented, due to the popularity among investors and governments of the U.S.’ broad, liquid and secure capital markets.

Market forces alone should lead one to expect the yuan’s share to rise and the dollar’s to fall over time.

Matching the currency used in payments and receipts in trade and investment reduces transaction costs, currency risk and volatility exposure, so more people will want to use the yuan as their transactions with China increase.

A shift away from trade

China’s share of world GDP (13.3% in nominal terms as of 2014) will likely rise as its economy continues to outpace the average of other large economies. But use of the yuan for payments and reserves may increase at a slower pace as China shifts away from an economy fueled by trade.

This is because China plans to reduce its reliance on export-led growth and increase domestic consumption as a share of GDP (which is currently very low).

Though there are few signs of this happening so far, the plan, if successful, means that trade as a share of GDP will begin to shrink. And that will likely mean slower growth in use of the yuan than in the recent past.

The difficult road to becoming a reserve currency

To become an “official” IMF-endorsed “reserve currency,” China has to meet various criteria that would make the yuan “freely usable”: that is, readily bought and sold by anyone at any time.

These criteria include a market-determined interest rate, exchange rate flexibility and convertibility, a more open capital account, and a significant share of official reserves, international banking liabilities and global debt securities. While many steps have been taken in these directions, including very recently, none of these criteria is close to being fully achieved.

All this requires politically and technically difficult domestic financial market reforms and liberalization. Such reforms reduce the government’s ability to establish policies that reduce volatility and encourage growth. That’s because of what is known as the “trilemma” of international finance, in which only two of the three goals of monetary policy — control of interest rates, exchange rate flexibility and capital mobility – can be achieved at the same time.

Market manipulations

The Chinese government’s own reactions to this past summer’s financial market turmoil suggest that it is not ready to undertake or complete many of the required reforms.

Its interventions show that it is not yet willing to allow market forces to rule in its currency and financial markets. This includes its effort to halt the precipitous decline of an overvalued stock market — which it itself had previously boosted — and to devalue the yuan by the largest amount in two decades.

Trust must be earned

Now，IMF designated the yuan as a reserve currency, this does not mean that its use as such will rise quickly or greatly. World central banks and individual investors will only increase their use and holdings of yuan if they have confidence in the currency.

And that won’t happen until Chinese financial markets develop the depth, diversity, transparency and security that have kept the dollar reigning supreme as the world’s preferred reserve currency, even as the U.S. share of global trade and investment has declined.

Governments are understandably reluctant to hold reserves in a politically managed rather than market-determined currency.

The trust of market actors has to be earned over time and cannot be merely conferred by an international body like the IMF.

Benefits and disadvantages

There are some benefits when a currency becomes more widely used in the global monetary system — its “internationalization”.

One benefit is “seignorage,” which is the revenue the issuer gets from the value of a currency over and above the cost of producing it. Others include a looser (more stimulative) monetary policy, enabling (marginally) faster growth, and the ability to borrow and invest internationally in one’s own currency, thus avoiding currency risk.

But there are also disadvantages, including losing control over the effectiveness of monetary policy and exposing the domestic economy to destabilizing (and increasingly volatile) global capital flows.

This is why small open economies like Singapore and Switzerland, whose currencies are popular with international investors, have long resisted internationalization. In contrast, China seems to regard reserve currency status as desirable for its own sake, as a “status good” conferring an assumed prestige that it craves.

In the longer run, both China and the world economy stand to gain from increased international use of the yuan. China will benefit from the domestic financial market reforms that internationalization will require, and the rest of the world will get a more diverse basket of currencies to choose from to finance trade and investment and hold reserves, reducing the current overdependence on the U.S. dollar.

This should also help us avoid the chronic and excessive trade and financial imbalances among countries.

But before we can get there, China needs to follow through on major reforms of its domestic financial system, which will not be quick, easy or certain.

Linda Lim is a professor of strategy at the University of Michigan. This piece was originally published on The Conversation.