精神错乱的美欧日央行 Central banks prove Einstein's theory

Albert Einstein is said to have defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By failing to change their way of thinking since the global financial crisis, the world’s main central banks are proving Einstein right.

据说阿尔伯特•爱因斯坦(Albert Einstein)曾给“精神错乱”(insanity)下了个定义：一遍又一遍地重复做同一件事，却期待出现不同的结果。自全球金融危机爆发以来，世界各大央行从未改变过自己的思路，用它们的实际行动证明了爱因斯坦的正确。

Many in the markets worry that central banks are running out of ammunition to boost global growth and generate inflation. They are not. The Bank of Japan’s adoption of negative interest rates, the European Central Bank’s extension of its quantitative easing (QE) programme and the Federal Reserve’s decision to slow the normalisation of US interest rates show that policymakers can still draw on plenty of firepower.

许多市场人士担心各大央行为了推动全球经济增长和通货膨胀即将耗光弹药。其实不然。日本央行(BoJ)采取了负利率政策，欧洲央行(ECB)扩大了量化宽松(QE)计划，美联储(Fed)决定延缓美元利率正常化，这一切都表明政策制定者仍有充足的火力。

So it is not that central banks are not doing enough. It is that their policies are misguided and are hampering global rebalancing. In particular, investors should be worried that policymakers have failed to learn three main lessons from the subpar performance of the global economy since the 2008-09 crisis.

所以，问题并不是各央行做得还不够，而是它们的政策是错的，而且这些错误的政策阻碍了全球经济恢复平衡。投资者尤其应该担心的是，政策制定者们没能从2008-09年危机后全球经济的欠佳表现中学到以下三大教训。

First, if an economy is drowning in debt, the solution is not to pile on even more debt. That is why the ECB’s offer, under the terms of its new targeted longer term refinancing operations, to pay eurozone banks to increase their lending is badly judged. The ECB is right to do QE, but at the same time it should use its new powers as the supervisor of eurozone banks to force a swifter write-off of bad debts. Almost 20 per cent of Italian bank loans are non-performing. Until now, the ECB has counted on QE to work by weakening the euro. Its strategy instead should be to use QE to buy time to cleanse bank balance sheets.

首先，如果一个经济体已经债台高筑，解决之道不是往上面堆积更多债务。因此欧洲央行向欧元区银行付息以鼓励它们增加放贷的做法——根据其新的定向长期再融资操作(TLTRO)——是失策之举。欧洲央行在量化宽松上是正确的，但同时应利用其身为欧元区银行监督者所获得的新权力，推动坏账加速核销。意大利银行贷款有近20%为不良贷款。到目前为止，欧洲央行一直指望量化宽松通过削弱欧元来发挥作用。它应该改变策略，利用量化宽松来争取时间，以清理银行的资产负债表。

Second, no one wins from competitive devaluation when global consumer demand is weak because of excessive savings, as is the case today. The Bank of Japan has deployed the big battalions in the currency wars. Abenomics, the economic strategy of prime minister Shinzo Abe, was meant to combine monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and structural reform. Instead, in the past two years it has boiled down to a devaluation of the yen. On that narrow criterion, Abenomics might be judged a success — the yen has become so undervalued as a result of the BoJ’s loose monetary policy that traders are snapping it up.

其次，当全球消费需求因过度储蓄而疲软时，竞争性贬值不会给任何人带来好处，现在的情况正是如此。日本央行已为这场汇率大战布下重兵。作为日本首相安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)的经济战略，安倍经济学(Abenomics)的初衷是要打出货币宽松、财政刺激和结构改革的组合拳。结果过去两年这一战略却造成日元贬值。单从这一点来判断，安倍经济学或许算得上成功——由于日本央行宽松的货币政策，导致日元被严重低估，交易员正在争相吸纳日元。

But in fact the BoJ’s policy is as ill-thought-out as the ECB’s. Japan’s biggest economic imbalance is that too much income flows to companies, which sit on mountains of cash instead of investing it or returning it to shareholders. A cheaper yen compounds this problem. By boosting export earnings and making imports dearer, a weaker exchange rate transfers ever more income from households to the corporate sector. So the BoJ should welcome the recent recovery in the yen.

但实际上日本央行的政策就像欧洲央行的一样考虑欠妥。日本最大的经济失衡在于过多的收入流向企业，而企业则坐守金山，既不投资也不返回给股东。日元贬值令这一问题更加严重。汇率贬值通过提高出口收入，推升进口价格，将更多家庭收入转移到企业部门。因此，对于近期日元的回升，日本央行应予以欢迎。

Unfortunately, the central bank has waited far too long to do the right thing. A financial crisis in Japan is now a matter of when, not if. As unlikely as it sounds in an economy fighting falling prices, the crisis will take the form of inflation. That will happen when Japanese banks run out of government bonds to sell to the BoJ, which will be forced to increase its purchases from insurers and other non-bank financial institutions. The result will be a rapid expansion in broad money, unmatched by growth in the real economy. That will unnerve domestic investors and spark a flight into US Treasuries and other overseas assets, sapping the yen. If the crunch comes in the next year or two the rest of the world will be too weak to withstand it.

不幸的是，该央行等了太久，以致做不了正确的事情。对日本来说，现在的问题已经不是金融危机是否会发生，而是金融危机何时会发生。对于一个奋力应对物价下滑的经济体而言，尽管听上去不大可能，但这场危机会以通胀的形式出现。当日本的银行没有了可以卖给日本央行的政府债券、从而迫使央行增加从保险公司和其他非银行金融机构购买资产的时候，就是危机爆发之时。其结果是广义货币快速扩张，与实体经济增长不匹配。这会让国内投资者感到不安，促使资金向美国国债和其他海外资产转移，从而压低日元。如果危机在未来一两年到来，以世界其他地方的疲弱状况，将无法承受冲击。

Third, tepid growth since the crisis shows that a short, sharp adjustment and purging of past excesses is better in the long term than prolonged attempts to preserve the economic status quo. The Fed should have stuck to its plan to raise interest rates four times in 2016 instead of worrying that higher rates might hurt the rest of the world or asset markets might throw a tantrum. An upbeat message that higher borrowing costs were justified by positive domestic economic trends, notably a strong labour market, would have given US consumers the confidence to spend their windfall gains from cheaper oil.

第三，危机后的缓慢增长表明，从长远来看，对过去的过度行为进行短暂、有力的调整和清理比旷日持久地试图维持经济现状要好。美联储本应该坚持在2016年加息4次的计划，而不是担忧加息可能损及世界其他地区，或者资产市场可能兴风作浪。积极的国内经济趋势，尤其是强劲的就业市场会证明更高的借贷成本是合理的，这样的乐观讯息会给美国消费者注入信心，使他们愿意把因为油价下降而省下来的钱花出去。

In short, the ECB, the BoJ and the Fed have missed a golden opportunity this month to make much-needed course corrections. As a result, the euro area and Japan remain fragile while the US is not making the most of much-improved fundamentals, so the global economy is still perilously unbalanced. The world might muddle through for another year, but its leading central banks have failed to banish the risk of a calamitous 2017.

简而言之，欧洲央行、日本央行和美联储在本月错失了一个进行亟需的路径修正的绝佳机会。结果是，欧元区和日本依然脆弱，美国也没有最大化利用大有改善的经济基本面，因此全球经济依然极为不平衡，这很危险。今年世界或许又能勉强对付过去，但各大央行未能消除可能使2017年成为灾难性的一年的风险。