基于货币需求的南宋钱荒成因新探

A new inquiry into the reasons for the Copper Drought in the Southern Song in perspective of money demand

宋代钱荒成因的研究,学界多所关注,已有丰富成果面世。历史实际表明,钱荒主要出现在中唐至明中叶这七八个世纪之中,尤以两宋时期最为突出。但宋史学者的研究主要集中在北宋时期,南宋的钱荒问题涉及较少。而且从钱荒形成原因来看,学界从货币制度与货币供给入手研究较多,而从货币需求进行分析较少。基于上述两个原因,本文拟从货币需求的角度对南宋钱荒现象进行解释,进而探寻中国传统社会走出钱荒困境的真正出路。作者通过分析指出,南宋时期人口增长、社会财富总量增加、城市化率上升、贸易规模扩大等原因所导致的货币需求量急剧上升,已是体重价低的贱金属货币体系所无法承担的历史重任。钱荒问题的产生、弥漫及扩散,从静态的货币市场看是供求失衡、供不应求所致;若从长时段的历史动态看,其根本的原因来自宋明时期社会经济结构由中古农业社会向近代工商社会转进的时代潮流。

The reasons for the Copper Drought in the Song Dynasty have caught attention from many scholars and there have been many studies.Historical materials show that the drought lasted from the mid-Tang to the mid-Ming, and it was most salient in the Song. However, most scholars specializing in the Song's history focus on the Northern Song, and they are seldom deal with the drought in the Southern Song. And in terms of its reasons, most studies discuss it in perspective of monetary system and supply instead of demand. For the two reasons, the authors try to explain the phenomenon in terms of monetary demand and explore further the real way for China's traditional societies to go out of the drought. In their analysis, they argue that the rapid increasing demand for money brought about by such reasons as demographic growth,increase of total wealth in the society, increasing urbanization ratio, expansion of trade had resulted in the inadequacy of the base metal monetary system to withstand its heavy historical responsibilities. In perspective of static monetary market, the emergence and expansion of the Copper Drought was resulted by the imbalance between supply and demand. In the historical dynamics of longue dur e, however, its fundamental reason is the trend that the social and economic structures had been transformed from a medieval agricultural society to a modern industrial and commercial society.é