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SeedPublished 2026-10-23

Why central banks are buying gold

Gold and safe-haven assets appear on 172 recent papers in the finance and economics journals, almost all about gold as a hedge for investors. Only 5 carry a central-bank, reserve or sanctions keyword. Central banks have been the largest buyers of gold since 2022. Is it insurance against sanctions, and does it move the price?

financeeconomicsmonetary policy

What prompted this#

Since October 2025, 172 papers carry a gold or safe-haven keyword (99 in finance journals, 50 in economics): "gold" on 58, "safe-haven assets" on 49, "gold prices" on 24. Only 5 of the 172 also carry a central-bank, reserve, de-dollarization, sanctions or official keyword, and "gold reserves" appears on 2 papers.

Questions#

  • Did central banks of countries at risk of sanctions buy more gold after the freezing of Russia's reserves in 2022, and did they move gold home?
  • How much of the gold price rise since 2022 can be attributed to official buying rather than investor demand?
  • Does gold in reserves reduce a country's borrowing costs or exchange rate volatility?

Data that could help#

Official reserve data (IMF, World Gold Council), customs data on gold flows, gold prices and measures of geopolitical alignment.

Next step#

Relate quarterly changes in each central bank's gold holdings since 2022 to its country's political distance from the US and its exposure to sanctions.

The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26
KeywordPapers, last 30 daysRankPapers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26*Papers, last 36 months
gold2#1303167
safe-haven assets3#776148
gold prices1#288155

Markdown version of this note: /ideas/central-banks-buying-gold.md

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Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Why central banks are buying gold. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/central-banks-buying-gold

@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-central-banks-buying-gold,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Why central banks are buying gold},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/central-banks-buying-gold}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}

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