La prochaine séance de l’atelier d’économie politique du CEPN aura lieu le mardi 13 février, en salle K301 de 12h30 à 14h.

Nous aurons le plaisir de recevoir Bruno de Conti (University of Campinas) qui interviendra autour du thème “China: capital flight or renminbi internationalization?”.

Vous trouverez ci-joint un texte co-écrit avec Paulo Van Noije dans le cadre du Forum for Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM) en 2017 qui traite de ce sujet. Le résumé de l’article se trouve ci-dessus.

Comme à l’accoutumée, des sandwichs, fruits et bouteilles d’eau seront à votre disposition.

En espérant vous y voir nombreux-ses.

L’équipe de l’atelier d’économie politique du CEPN

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Abstract:

Several articles have suggested the occurrence of a supposed capital flight in China. The large decline in China’s international reserves effectively attracts attention because it means a reversal in the strong upward trend since the 1990s. Actually, this paper claims that analyses that only look to the international reserves may be deceptive. This paper aims therefore to answer the question: is China really undergoing a Capital flight? The hypothesis is that to answer this question we have to go beyond the mere analysis of the reserves, looking also to two other issues, that is, the changes in the compositions of Chinese external assets and the process of internationalization of the Chinese renminbi (RMB). The methodology of the paper includes hence a broader analysis of the Chinese external stocks and flows, studying their evolution between 2014- 16; and an analysis of the currency hierarchy and the international usage of the RMB. Based on these assumptions, this paper raises two main conclusions. The first one is that the impressive fall in the international reserves that occurred in China in 2015-16 was partially due to a strategy of the Chinese government to diversify its international assets. The second one is that there has indeed occurred a capital flight in China in 2015-16 mostly due to a reduction of the non-resident deposits and loans in China, but these outflows were mostly in RMB and this constitutes a crucial difference in comparison to the capital flight that has recurrently took place in many peripheral countries. First of all, because its effects over the domestic economy are much lower, since there is no lack of US dollar and no exchange rate crises. Secondly, because it may paradoxically contribute to the internationalization of the RMB.