 Gold as international reserves: A barbarous relic no more?Serkan Arslanalp, Barry Eichengreen and Chima Simpson-Bell Journal of International Economics, 2023, vol. 145, issue C Abstract: After falling for decades, central bank gold holdings have risen since the Global Financial Crisis. We identify 14 “active diversifiers,” countries that purchased gold and raised its share in total reserves by 5 or more percentage points over the last two decades. In contrast to the diversification of foreign currency reserves, which has been undertaken by advanced and developing country central banks alike, diversifiers into gold are exclusively emerging markets. We document two sets of factors contributing to this trend. First, gold is seen as a safe haven in periods of economic, financial and geopolitical volatility. Second, financial sanctions by the US, UK, EU and Japan, the main reserve-issuing economies, are associated with an increase in the share of central bank reserves held in the form of gold. Keywords: International reserves; Gold; Sanctions (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:inecon:v:145:y:2023:i:c:s0022199623001083 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2023.103822 Access Statistics for this article Journal of International Economics is currently edited by Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and RodrÃguez-Clare, Andrés More articles in Journal of International Economics from Elsevier |
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