制度成本与绩效:中国近代竞争性货币发行的经济学分析

Institution Cost and Performance: an Economic Analysis on the Competitive Monetory Issue in Modern China

19世纪末期至法币改革以前,中国处于多元货币发行与流通体制时期,表现为货币的自由发行与多元流通,货币发行与流通情况主要依靠市场选择,形成一种竞争性货币制度。运用制度经济学理论,对近代中国竞争性货币发行的制度成本与绩效进行实证研究,发现竞争性货币制度下,同样不能避免货币失信,货币滥发,不能解决通货膨胀等货币现象。不惟如此,竞争性货币制度同时具有引发持币风险与投机,增加交易费用,增加市场不确定因素等弊端。

From the late 19th century to legal money reformation,China was in a multi-currency system with free monetary issuance and multi-currency circulation.The issurance and circulation of currency was mainly decided by market,and that formed a competitive currency system.This paper made an empirical research to the cost and performance of competitive currency system with the institutional economics.The results demonstrate that competitive currency faied to eliminate currency discredit,over-issurance and insolvable inflation.Besides that,competitive currency has many disadvantages,such as increasing the risk of holding currency and investment,transaction costs and market uncertainty,etc.