According to gold.org, gold demand is 68% jewelry, 19% investment and 13% industrial. Apart from a slight economic influence on jewelry, gold is going to be relatively free of economic influences. Silver demand on the other hand is much more strongly tied to economy although its monetary qualities have kept demand up
so gold would be held instead of traded for productive uses. The other aspect is that gold is an especially important form of money right now since most other currencies can (and probably will) be printed to pay of excessive debt.