货币创造的逻辑形成和历史演进——对传统货币理论的批判

The Formation and Historical Evolution of Money Creation: Criticisms of Traditional Money Theory

本文从逻辑的原点出发,分析了信用货币制度下货币的创造过程,提出货币的核心功能不是交易媒介和价值储藏手段,而是组织生产。货币的本质不是一般等价物,而是作为无限跨期价值尺度的一般性债务。从货币创造的视角出发分析了货币的演进历史,质疑了传统理论描述的从实物货币到信用货币的演进过程,提出信用货币是历史上货币的主要表现形式,货币演进历史的主要脉络是:私人信用货币—政府信用货币—银行信用货币。最后本文分析了对银行货币创造的约束,并回顾和总结了中国央行约束与银行反约束在中国的实践。

I first posited the “loans create deposits (LCD)” theory in 1996 and then formalized it in 2001. This theory argues that banks create deposit money through asset expansion, explaining the mechanism and rule of money creation from the perspective of credit and balance sheet double-entry bookkeeping. The name comes from the idea that the main avenue for asset expansion is loans.“Loans” include not only what are traditionally thought of as loans, but also banks purchases of customers' assets. This theory challenges the traditional theory of “Deposits Create Loans” and has gradually been recognized by academics. An in-depth analysis of the logic of money creation under the credit money system helps to clarify the relationship between money and economic operation and improves monetary policy. In this paper, I first analyze the process of money creation in the credit money system and point out that the essence of money creation is debt exchange. The key function of money is neither as a transaction medium nor value storage, but as the organizer of production. The essence of money is not its general equivalent, but that general debt is an infinite intertemporal value scale. The emergence of central banks solves the bank liquidity problem and provides the base money for inter-bank settlements. Then, a multi-tier credit money system forms with a base money tier created by the central bank and another money tier created by banks. In this system, banks create all money, while central banks use base money to control money creation by banks through settlement constraints, cash constraints and required reserve constraints on banks. I then analyze the historical evolution of money creation and argue against the traditional theory in which the evolution is from commodity money to credit money. I propose that credit money is the main form of money throughout history. The evolution process of money goes from private credit money to government credit money to bank credit money. The carrier of money changes during the development, from an instrument of recording debts to coins and banknotes to cash and deposits supported by central banks in the credit money system. Next, I discuss the constraints faced by banks in money creation. Although banks are not subject to budget constraints due to the self-balancing of assets and liabilities in money creation, they face the external constraints that arise from loan demand, liquidity and capital and the internal constraints from banks' internal risk management. Central banks affect loan demand by adjusting interest rates, control liquidity in banking system and set capital constraints. However, banks usually ignore their internal risk management constraints because of moral hazard and they can ease external constraints using shadow activities. Therefore, central banks need to constantly strengthen the external constraints to improve the effectiveness of monetary policy. Finally, I review China's monetary policy. The People's Bank of China has timely adjusted and constantly innovated its monetary policy tools in response to changes in economic conditions to strengthen external and internal constraints, guard against banks' moral hazards and establish an effective money creation control mechanism. Moreover, the relative importance of external constraints in money creation is also changing. Interest rate constraints are always emphasized by central banks, the importance of liquidity constraints is declining and the significance of capital constraints is increasing. In some respects, China is a leader in monetary policy.