关注社会:中国通胀溯源

那么，央行为什么、在什么情况下会多发货币呢？周其仁认为，在1995年《中国人民银行法》通过前，央行超发货币的主要原因，就是央行常常被迫向财政透支。1995年，朱镕基进行整顿，再也不允许通过基础货币供应来解决财政不足问题，中国货币才走向稳定。
So why or under what circumstances will the Chinese Central Bank issue more currency? In Zhou’s view, before the passage of the Law of People’s Bank of China” in 1995, the major reason for the central bank to issue excess currency was that the central bank often ran fiscal deficit. In 1995, Zhu Rongji (former premier of the State Council of China) rectified the mechanism and forbade solving the financial shortage by issuing excess base currency. Since then, Chinese currency embarked on a steady track.

但随着中国经济的发展，老问题解决了，新问题又来。对外开放后，中国利用劳动力和资源成本低的优势，大量出口，中国要利用这个优势，保持出口导向政策，就希望保持人民币汇率稳定。但如何在汇率稳定的同时保持人民币币值的稳定？“这两年的挑战和冲突就是这么来的，”周其仁说。
However, with the development of Chinese economy, while the old problem has been addressed, new problems are coming ahead. After the opening-up, China took advantage of its cheap labor and resources cost to increase its exportation dramatically and kept the export-oriented policy all the way so as to maintain the stability of its currency. But how can we maintain the stability of the exchange rate of our currency while keeping its value stable? “All challenges and conflicts came from this issue.” Zhou said.

要保持汇率稳定，央行就不得不动用基础货币来干预外汇。“在某种程度上，汇率制度变成了中国的发钞制度，”周其仁说。正是由于这个理由，他将演讲的标题定为《货币是一种制度安排》。因为制度性原因，央行不得不以基础货币来维持汇率稳定，于是通胀就无法避免。而要解决这个问题，不是要让人民币大幅升值，而是要改制度。周其仁认为，本质上是要通过财政解决，“把真金白银放进去”，而不要用基础货币。
To maintain the exchange rate stability, the central bank would have to use base money to intervene in the foreign exchange. “To some extent, the exchange rate system has become a note-issuing system in China.” Zhou said. It is for this reason that Zhou made the title of his speech as Money Is a System Arrangement. Out of institutional reasons, the central bank has to utilize base money to keep exchange rate stability and inflation, therefore, is inevitable. In Zhou’s view, inflation can be fundamentally tackled by fiscal means and we should “put real money in the market”, not base money.