美联储看来要犯严重错误 The Fed looks set to make a dangerous mistake

Will the Federal Reserve’s September meeting see US interest rates go up for the first time since 2006? Officials have held out the prospect that it might, and have suggested that — barring major unforeseen developments — rates will probably be increased by the end of the year. Conditions could change, and the Fed has been careful to avoid outright commitments. But a reasonable assessment of current conditions suggest that raising rates in the near future would be a serious error that would threaten all three of the Fed’s major objectives — price stability, full employment and financial stability.

在美联储(Fed)今年9月的会议上，我们将看到美国利率自2006年以来的第一次上升吗？官员们坚称这种可能性是存在的，并暗示，除非发生重大的不可预知事件，否则今年年底前很可能加息。状况可能变化，美联储(Fed)一直小心翼翼地避免做出直截了当的承诺。但对当前状况作出的合理评估似乎表明，在最近的将来加息将是一个严重的错误，它将危及美联储的所有三大目标：物价稳定、充分就业和金融稳定。

Like Most major central banks, the Fed has put its price stability objective into practice by adopting a 2 per cent inflation target. The biggest risk is that inflation will be lower than this — a risk that would be exacerbated by tightening policy. More than half the components of the consumer price index have declined in the past six months — the first time this has happened in more than a decade. CPI inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food prices and difficult-to-measure housing, is less than 1 per cent. Market-based measures of expectations suggest that, over the next 10 years, inflation will be well under 2 per cent. If the currencies of China and other emerging markets depreciate further, US inflation will be even more subdued.

像大多数主要央行一样，美联储为了实现价格稳定目标，把通胀率目标定为2%。目前最大的风险就是通胀率将低于这一水平，收紧货币政策将会加剧此风险。过去6个月里，消费价格指数(CPI)中的逾半数成分都有所下跌，这是10多年来首次出现这种情况。剔除能源、食品和难以衡量的住房的CPI目前低于1%。基于市场的预期指标显示，未来10年，通胀率将远低于2%。如果中国等新兴市场的货币进一步贬值，美国的通胀将更加低迷。

Tightening policy will adversely affect employment levels because higher interest rates make holding on to cash more attractive than investing it. Higher interest rates will also increase the value of the dollar, making US producers less competitive and pressuring the economies of our trading partners.

收紧货币政策将对就业水平构成负面影响，因为利率升高会让保留现金比投资现金更有吸引力。利率升高也将推高美元汇率，降低美国生产企业的竞争力，也给我国贸易伙伴的经济体带来压力。

This is especially troubling at a time of rising inequality. Studies of periods of tight labour markets like the late 1990s and 1960s make it clear that the best social programme for disadvantaged workers is an economy where employers are struggling to fill vacancies.

这在不平等程度上升之际尤其麻烦。对1990年代末和1960年代等劳动力紧张时期的研究表明，对弱势工人而言，最好的社会方案是打造雇主竞相填补岗位空缺的经济。

There may have been a financial stability case for raising rates six or nine months ago, as low interest rates were encouraging investors to take more risks and businesses to borrow money and engage in financial engineering. At the time, I believed that the economic costs of a rate increase exceeded the financial stability benefits, but there were grounds for concern. That debate is now moot. With credit becoming more expensive, the outlook for the Chinese economy clouded at best, emerging markets submerging, the US stock market in a correction, widespread concerns about liquidity, and expected volatility having increased at a near-record rate, markets are themselves dampening any euphoria or overconfidence. The Fed does not have to do the job. At this moment of fragility, raising rates risks tipping some part of the financial system into crisis, with unpredictable and dangerous results.

若是在6个月或9个月之前加息，或许还能祭出金融稳定方面的理由，因为那时低利率正鼓励投资者承担更多风险，鼓励企业借入更多资金从事金融工程。当时，我认为加息的经济代价大于维持金融稳定方面的收益，但各方有理由感到担忧。现在这场辩论已无关紧要了。随着信贷变得更昂贵，中国经济前景即使往好了说也是乌云密布，新兴市场正在沉没，美国股市陷入回调，市场普遍担忧流动性，以及预期波动率以接近创纪录的速度加大，市场本身正在抑制狂热氛围或者过度乐观情绪。美联储不需要出手。在当下市场脆弱之时加息，可能会把金融体系的某些部分推入危机，带来难以预料的危险后果。

Why, then, do so many believe that a rate increase is necessary? I doubt that, if rates were now 4 per cent, there would be much pressure to raise them. That pressure comes from a sense that the economy has substantially normalised during six years of recovery, and so the extraordinary stimulus of zero interest rates should be withdrawn. There has been much talk of “headwinds” that require low interest rates now but this will abate before long, allowing for normal growth and normal interest rates.

那么，为什么有这么多人认为有必要加息呢？如果目前利率为4%，加息压力还会很大吗？我对此表示怀疑。压力来自一种观点，即美国经济经过6年的复苏已基本正常化，因此异常的零利率刺激应该退场了。很多人在说，眼下有一些“逆风”需要低利率，但恶劣天气很快会过去，为正常增长和正常利率创造条件。

Whatever merit this view had a few years ago, it is much less plausible as we approach the seventh anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It is no longer easy to think of economic conditions that can plausibly be seen as temporary headwinds. Fiscal drag is over. Banks are well capitalised. Corporations are flush with cash. Household balance sheets are substantially repaired.

无论这一观点在几年前有什么道理，在我们就要迎来雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)倒闭七周年之际，它的可信度已远远不如当初。现在，我们不再能够轻易把经济状况可信地视为暂时的“逆风”。财政拖累结束了。银行的资本充足了。企业坐拥大量现金。家庭资产负债表基本上已修复。

Much more plausible is the view that, for reasons rooted in technological and demographic change and reinforced by greater regulation of the financial sector, the global economy has difficulty generating demand for all that can be produced. This is the “secular stagnation” diagnosis, or the very similar idea that Ben Bernanke, former Fed chairman, has urged of a “savings glut”. Satisfactory growth, if it can be achieved, requires very low interest rates that historically we have only seen during economic crises. This is why long term bond markets are telling us that real interest rates are expected to be close to zero in the industrialised world over the next decade.

可信得多的观点是，出于一些源自技术与人口结构变化、而且被金融行业更严厉监管强化的原因，全球经济无法为所有可以生产出来的产品创造出需求。这是一种“长期停滞”的诊断，非常类似于美联储前主席本伯南克(Ben Bernanke)在呼吁消除“储蓄过剩”时提出的观点。令人满意的增长——如果可以实现的话——需要实行历史上仅仅在经济危机期间看到的极低利率。这就是为什么长期债券市场告诉我们，预计未来10年里工业化国家的实际利率会接近于零。

New conditions require new policies. There is much that should be done, such as steps to promote public and private investment so as to raise the level of real interest rates consistent with full employment. Unless these new policies are implemented, inflation sharply accelerates, or euphoria in markets breaks out, there is no case for the Fed to adjust policy interest rates.

新的状况要求新的政策。目前应当采取很多措施，比如促进公共和私人部门的投资，以提升实际利率，使其达到与充分就业相称的水平。除非实施了这些新政策，除非通胀大幅加速上升，或者市场狂热爆发，否则美联储就没有理由调整政策利率。

The writer is the Charles W Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretary

本文作者是哈佛大学查尔斯圠縠斂祵大学教授(Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard)，曾任美国财政部长