Gold in the International Monetary System: A Catalog of the Options

Robert Z. Aliber

Chapter 9 in The Reconstruction of International Monetary Arrangements, 1987, pp 168-182 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract For much of the last decade, one of the apparent paradoxes has been the contrast between the attitudes toward gold as an international reserve asset by officials in monetary institutions, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, and the attitudes of investors and market participants. The monetary authorities in the United States and several other countries have sought to demonetize gold or to move gold from ‘the center of the international monetary system’. If their views prevail, the likelihood that the real price of gold would rise significantly is low, primarily because central banks might sell gold from their holdings so that the market price of gold would be depressed. Yet in the last decade, investors and market participants have priced gold as if they expect its price to rise indefinitely, and by as much or more than the increase in the consumer price level. They view gold as an inflation hedge, even though there is modest evidence to suggest that gold should be a better inflation hedge than most other storable commodities. Apparently the investors and market participants do not believe that the monetary authorities will sell much of their gold, even though over the decade they sold about 5 per cent of their gold to private parties.

Keywords: Central Bank; Monetary Authority; International Reserve; Convenience Yield; Gold Price (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-18513-9_10

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349185139

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-18513-9_10

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().