Role of gold in foreign exchange reserves of commodity exporting countries

Abstract

The gold is still a reserve asset with specific features yet the variants of reserve management have improved considerably. Tendency to maintain ultra-low real interest rates potentially should affect the upward shift in demand on gold because alternative costs of holding it are declining. Demand for gold has indeed risen from the side of central banks recently. At the same time, there is no consensus in economic literature about optimal share of gold in foreign exchange reserves. However, it is presumed that incentives for more diversification are stronger than reserves hoarding is abnormal. Commodity exporters have accumulated large reserve over the last decades. Thus, their diversification decisions in favour of gold seem to be natural. However, empirical analysis paints a more complicated picture. A) Commodity exporters are getting to be more and more heterogeneous in terms holding gold as a share of foreign assets. Such heterogeneity is more vivid compared to the world as a whole. B) Distribution of gold reserves among commodity exporters is changing toward increasing number of countries with gold holdings over the median size for the group. C) There is direct correlation between global commodity prices and gold holdings in tons, but an inverse relationship in the case of share of gold in reserves. This leads to the conclusion that there are two types of demand on gold: endogenous as a function of gradual hoarding of foreign exchange reserves, and specific, that is driven by specific portfolio management needs and non-economic factors. This finding is consistent with features of holding reserves in countries with large hoarding and strong vulnerability to terms-of-trade shocks and features of political regimes in countries with resource abundance.