The «Collateralized» Ruble: Deus ex Machina?

Abstract

Huge volumes of world liquidity which were followed by the splurge of the global inflation once more highlighted fundamental shortcomings of the fiduciary money. Its promising al­ternative, as shown in the paper, could be a currency collateralized by the value of a natural re­source to be formed on a соmpetitive and liquid market. Until recently, such a theoretical construction could be viewed as a free ruble/euro conversion in the framework of selling natural gas on the European market. The forex rate dynamic was modelled as a logistic process of depreciation (appreciation) of a currency used by a resource supplier against that of its buyer. The process was driven by changes in prices for the exported resource. For the forex rate follo­wing stationary gamma distribution the maximal discrepancy between the secured rubles supply and demand corresponded to its most probable, albeit unstable, value. In particular, an important relationship between the rate of change in the ruble price of gas and the forex rate volatility has been established. Some ways of «embedding» portfolios of resource-backed assets into the process of ruble issuance were discussed as well.