AN INVESTING AND A FUNDING CURRENCY: ANALYTICS AND PROSPECTS

The use of international currencies in the global financial system is not symmetric: while a few currencies have been primarily used as investing currencies, a few others have mostly served as funding currencies; only a handful have a better balance functioning as both investing and funding currencies. This paper develops a three-currency model to study the determinants of the demand for assets and liabilities denominated in an international currency, and attempts to shed light on the prospects for the renminbi as a budding international currency. We show that interest rate differentials would be only one of the factors shaping the renminbi’s position, while other factors, including the correlation between foreign countries ’ economic growth and their bilateral exchange rates against the renminbi, and the correlation between exchange rates of the renminbi with other international currencies, would also be important. A broad interpretation of these findings is that the renminbi will likely be very attractive to investors from high-income economies and fund-raisers from emergin