信用货币创造机制的历史演进逻辑

The Historical Evolution Logic of Credit Money Creation Mechanism

本文对"存款创造贷款"和"贷款创造存款"两种信用货币创造机制的历史演进逻辑进行详尽阐释,阐明"创造"一词只体现存款和贷款数量增加的发生顺序,而不代表两种业务之间具有绝对的逻辑先后关系。本文强调,两种机制的核心差异在于贷款的自主性,与银行的经营决策、所处的监管环境等多种因素有关,这一结论对两种机制在实践中的适用性带来一定启示。金融监管政策约束较松时,银行可以按客户的借款意愿提供贷款并直接创造出存款。然而金融监管政策约束较紧时,银行需要在存款侧进行监管套利才能发放贷款,此时的贷款只能创造出流动性和安全性都劣于银行存款的"影子负债"。因此,忽视金融监管环境对银行贷款自主性的限制容易导致流动性风险扩散和系统性风险积聚。

This paper sorts out the literature and evolution logic of two credit money creation mechanisms,"Deposit Creates Loan"(DCL) and"Loan Creates Deposit"(LCD). Under the DCL mechanism, banks need to issue loans from existing deposits. While under the LCD mechanism, the ability to issue deposit money allows banks to directly create equivalent deposits while issuing loans. An in-depth understanding of both mechanisms is a prerequisite for analyzing bank business,money, and credit.It is found that the term"create"only reflects the order of occurrence of deposits and loans, and does not represent an absolute logical sequence. DCL and LCD are more like different views of loan-deposit relations rather than two exclusive theories. The DCL mechanism describes the constraints faced by banks, while the LCD mechanism describes banks’ credit expansion. The key difference lies in the autonomy of loans, which is related to factors including the bank’s business decision and the regulatory environment. For banks with relatively weak loan autonomy, loans need to be made from existing deposits.The stronger the autonomy of loans, the more likely banks can directly create deposits through loans. This conclusion has enlightening significance for the application of these two mechanisms in practice.When regulatory constraints are loose, banks can provide loans directly according to customers’ willingness to borrow.Therefore, the LCD mechanism can better describe the process of credit money creation. However, when regulatory constraints(such as reserve requirements) bind, banks need to carry out regulatory arbitrage on their deposits to issue loans. Under this circumstance, loans cannot create real deposits, but can only create"shadow liabilities"whose liquidity and safety are both inferior to those of bank deposits. Therefore, ignoring the constraints of financial regulatory environment on banks’ loan autonomy easily leads to the spread of liquidity risks and the accumulation of systemic risks.