货币的非国家化:汉代中国的经历(前175—前144年)

Denationalization of Money:A Research Based on Chinas Experience at Western Han Dynasty,175B.C.-144B.C.

经济学家就货币发行权利的归属问题有过激烈争论。弗里德曼认为货币必须由央行发行和管理,哈耶克则提出"货币非国家化"理论,主张竞争会使得币值稳定的货币在市场上流通,并带来价格水平稳定。相关的实证研究迄今尚不多见。公元前2世纪中期的西汉文帝和景帝时期政府放任私人铸币的经历,为检验该理论提供了自然试验。本文发现,"行钱律"和"称钱衡"制度分别对应了Gresham法则的两种形式,在交易双方对铸币重量具有对称信息的条件下,货币市场的竞争导致高质量私人货币得以流通,基于钱币学和考古学发现的实证研究对此提供了支持。本文验证了哈耶克"货币非国家化"理论的有效性,也修正了其金属铸币时期铸币权须由政府垄断、纸币时代才能实行自由货币的观点。

Different economists held different views upon who can be entitled to the right to issue money. In Friedman＇s opinion, money should he issued and managed by central government. On the contrary, Hayek put forward the theory of ＂denationalization of money＂. Although it is very enlightening theoretically, little testimony can he found to verify the theory up to now. In the middle of the 2nd century B. C. , China had experienced private minting at the reign of Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing of Western Han dynasty, which provides a natural experiment to prove the validity of the theory. This paper finds that the fiat coin sys- tem and ＂coin balance＂ system correspond with the two forms of Gresham＇s law respectively. If both the sellers and the buyers are provided with symmetric information about the weight of coin, competitiveness will surely lead to high quality money circulating in market. Empirical research based on data collecting from historical literature of archaeology and numismatics may perfectly prove this finding. This paper not only proves the validity of the theory of ＂denationalization of money＂, but also revises Hayek＇s view that free money can merely be put into practice at the period of paper money.