Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) are reserve assets created by international practices. Its circulation is free, and it has the functions of value scale, means of payment and means of storage, but it has not been used by private individuals to directly mediate the circulation of international commodities. Therefore, it is not a complete world currency. The International Monetary Fund has a special drawing right department, and all participating member countries have a special drawing right account. When the IMF allocates SDR to member countries, the SDR allocated by member countries is credited to its account. When a member country encounters balance of payments difficulties and needs to use SDR, the IMF designates a country (usually a country with strong balance of payments) to accept SDR through coordination according to the relevant articles of association. Take two countries, A and B, as examples, assuming that they are allocated to 654.38+0 billion SDR respectively. When country A has a deficit in international payments and needs to use 200 million SDRs, and country B is designated to accept SDRs, the debit of country A's SDRs account will be added to the credit of country B, At the same time, the central bank of country B transfers the equivalent convertible currency to the central bank of country A. Attached Table: Example of SDR account login: SDR account of country A is priced at 200 million 1 billion 1 billion /2000SDR. At the beginning of its establishment, the pricing method of SDR was: 1 USD equals 1 SDR. At present, the IMF has selected five major countries in world trade (the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain and France), taking their respective foreign trade as the weight of the total trade of the five countries, and multiplying them by the exchange rate of the foreign exchange market of the five countries against the US dollar on the same day (or the day before) to get the dollar value of SDR on that day. Then through the market exchange rate, the price of SDR and other currencies is calculated. The weights are adjusted every five years, and the latest adjustment occurred at 200 1, 1, because the euro has started to reduce the number of currencies in the currency basket to four. The formula for calculating SDR value is as follows: SDR value expressed in USD = 1×45+ USD/EUR exchange rate× 29%+USD/GBP exchange rate×1%+USD/JPY exchange rate×15%. As can be seen from the calculation method of SDR value above, its value is relative. Because of the exchange rate fluctuation of any currency, the influence transmitted to SDR is greatly reduced (less than 1) after being weighted. In addition, these five currencies are the main currencies in the world at present. When the exchange rate of one currency falls, the exchange rate of another currency will rise. The exchange rates of different currencies move in different directions, which can offset each other's influence on SDR, thus making the value of SDR relatively stable. Therefore, value stability is a major feature of SDR. Three. Interest rate and the use of SDR Because the value of SDR is obtained by the weighted average of exchange rates of five major currencies, correspondingly, the interest rate of SDR assets is also obtained by the weighted average of market interest rates of these five currencies. At present, in addition to the members of the organization who join the SDR department, they can hold and use SDR, as well as the IMF itself and the Bank for International Settlements. In short, the institution that can hold SDR must be a government or an intergovernmental institution, and the use of SDR is limited to the government. This is the second feature of SDR. Within the IMF, SDR has the following purposes: 1. Get other convertible currencies through remittance (see above). 2. Repay the debt to the International Monetary Fund. 3. Pay the share. 4. Donation or loan to the Fund. 5. As the exchange rate basis of the national currency (1February 1993, the currencies of the five member countries maintained a fixed exchange rate with SDR). 6. Mutual credit agreements between members. 7. The unit of account of the International Monetary Fund. 8. Act as a reserve asset. Four. Characteristics and success or failure of SDR Compared with general reserve assets, SDR has some characteristics: (1) has no intrinsic value and is an artificial book asset; (2) Distribution by IMF according to countries' share; (3) At first, it can only be used between IMF and governments. When the SDR was first established, its value was determined by gold. The gold content of a SDR is 0.88867 1 g, which is equivalent to the value before depreciation 1 USD. 1974 SDR is decoupled from gold, and a basket of 16 currencies is used as the valuation standard. 1September, 980 18, the fixed value is changed to USD, GBP, FRF, JPY and the former Deutsche Mark, and it is adjusted every five years. After 1 99665438+1October1,the proportion of the five currencies is 39% of the US dollar, 2 1% of the German mark, 0/8% of the Japanese yen1/kloc-0. So far, the IMF has allocated about 2010.40 billion SDR in two phases (the first phase is 1.970 ~ 1.972, * * 9365438+0.40 billion SDR; The second phase is 1979- 198 1 year, * * *1211820,000 SDRS). At the beginning, SDR was only used as a supplement to the US dollar, so the number of SDR issued for the first time was only 93148 billion. 1973 After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, SDR was once touted as the most important reserve asset in the world. The second phase12118.2 billion was in 1979 ~ 1. 1995 and the allocation of the third SDR are still on paper because of the opposition of developed countries led by the United States. So far, SDR has not replaced the US dollar as the most important reserve asset for all countries. The main problems are as follows: 1. Nature of reserve assets. As an international reserve, it should have actual value, not imaginary value. SDR is only a fictitious international liquidity and has no solid material foundation. It has neither the value of gold itself nor the ability of balance of payments deficit, so it can't be the last international payment means, so it can't be the only real international currency. 2. The attitude of the United States. SDR replaced the US dollar as an international reserve currency to ease the pressure on the US dollar, but the United States tried its best to maintain the international status of the US dollar. As soon as the pressure on the dollar eased, the United States took various restrictive measures against SDR, mainly in that only two SDR issues were issued, with a total share of only 210.40 billion SDR. 3. Unreasonable distribution. It is obviously unreasonable to allocate SDR according to the share of member countries in the IMF. At the beginning, all developing countries were only allocated 1/4, while the United States was allocated 23%. 4. Quantity issued. The number of SDR is too small compared with the number of foreign exchange reserves in various countries, accounting for only 4.5%. It is impossible to issue a large number of SDR before too many dollars are liquidated. 5. Scope of use. Although the IMF has expanded the use of SDR, and extended * * * to some private sectors, and issued bonds based on SDR, most countries do not agree to use SDR because of issues related to the amount of money and monetary policy. In addition, the widespread debate on the following two issues caused by the issuance of SDR is also an important reason why SDR has not become the most important international reserve tendency. One is to change the account. The substitution account means that the IMF has opened an SDR deposit account. After countries convert their "surplus" dollars into SDR at the price of SDR dollars, their dollar reserves become SDR reserves, while the IMF invests concentrated dollars in American securities, and this part of dollars returns to the United States. The main purpose of changing accounts is to replace the increasingly rampant dollar with SDR, making it the most important reserve asset in the world. Finally, it was shelved because of the attitude and operational difficulties of the United States. The second is the issue of "aid linkage". The problem of "linking" is called "linking the allocation of SDR with development", which means that the IMF transfers the newly created SDR to developing countries through some methods. Its methods mainly include (1) direct distribution to developing countries in need of assistance; (2) Transfer to multilateral development agencies, and then multilateral development agencies provide assistance to developing countries; ⑶ The fund will still be allocated according to the share, and then the developed countries will transfer the allocated SDR to the developing countries in a "voluntary" way. Economists in all developing countries and some developed countries are actively in favor of the linkage plan, but the linkage plan has also been opposed by some economists, especially American economists. Because it is too controversial, it has not been adopted by the IMF.