与《资本主义之死》商榷
 
2008年4月10日 星期四
 

记

住这个日子吧：2008年3月14日——这是全球自由市场资本主义梦想破灭的一天。30年来，我们一直在努力缔造市场主导的金融体系。美联储(Fed)——美国货币政策负责机构——决定拯救贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)，宣告了这一时代的结束。政府解除管制已达极限。（专栏全文请见《全球自由资本主义之死》(The Rescue of Bear Stearns Marks Liberalisation’s Limit)，英国《金融时报》中文网www.ftchinese.com 4月7日发表）。

哈佛大学(Harvard)里卡多•奥斯曼(Ricardo Hausmann)：马丁可能是有道理的，但我认为，需要放在中心位置的是宏观政策，而非金融政策。

我会把更多责任归咎于货币政策的执行方式。根据所谓的泰勒(Taylor)规则，只要对于通胀的担忧不超过对于失业的担忧，一国货币政策就可以将利率设在尽可能低的水平，公然漠视经常账户、外汇汇率、资产价格、国际金融、信贷增长率或家庭资产负债表。

 

一项通过鼓励公民过度借贷而超越可持续增长率的宏观政策，不会通过金融监管就变得安全。

哥伦比亚大学(Columbia)吉列尔莫•卡尔沃(Guillermo Calvo)：我赞同里卡多对宏观政策的关注。金融体系很像人体的神经系统：它与整个身体相关联。然而，尽管这些问题非常重要，但金融危机可能会分散我们的注意力，让我们不去关注最近另一类弱点的突然涌现：更糟糕的价格和汇率锚定位。如果我们继续不予理会，这一弱点可能会引发一类新的危机。

从上世纪80年代至今的“大缓和”(great moderation)时期，令各国央行产生了一种错觉：通过操纵参考利率，令其达到足以安全放任汇率和资金存量完全由市场力量决定的程度，它们可以建立一个极其明智的名义锚定位体系。

然而，各国央行可能即将丧失这一令人生畏的力量。原因是，通过购买资产（其中一些可能资不抵债或需要进行大规模重组），它们可能正在冒险进入不属于标准流动性管理的领域。例如，这些财政运作可能会使业已疲弱的美国财政状况进一步恶化。

世界可能正处于这样一个机制的边缘：在这种机制下，通过将全球贸易等关键领域卷入其中，汇率的波动将加剧当前问题的复杂性。我认为，国际社会现在是时候正面解决这些问题了。自满让我们陷入了次贷危机；不要让我们的货币政策再犯同样的错误。我的担心或许有些夸张，但预防总是胜过治疗。

彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)亚当•普森(Adam Posen)：从政治层面上讲，这个问题不会仅限于我们是否需要更多监管。正如错误地用亚洲金融危机来检验“东亚模式”一样，此次危机将被视为对“盎格鲁撒克逊模式”的一次测试。它将在更广泛的意义上成为自由化的障碍。这非常糟糕。

生活是复杂的，因此人们对各类事件会考虑过多。正如各种危机复苏经验所证实的，亚洲金融危机实际上并不是亚洲多种经济体系的总体结论。但它确实暴露了裙带人士过度投资的问题。与此相似，美国的这场金融动荡表明，如果有人允许银行准备金不足，不去预防欺诈，将无用的“AAA”评级制度化，就会产生糟糕后果。

这场金融危机并未显示出与企业保持距离的方式（即青睐证券化更胜于关系贷款）的价值或有效性。然而，这正是欧洲和亚洲现在讨论的方向：基于关系的贷款和内部人士/股东公司治理并没有害处，而与此相反的“美国方式”则不稳定。事实可以证明，这种说法是错误的。过去15年美国的生产率增长证实了这点。但如今人们却深感迷惑。

马丁可能是对的，这是“自由市场资本主义”的一个转折点，一个局部最大值，但危险来自与马丁不同的角度。

伦敦政治经济学院(London School of Economics)罗伯特•威德(Robert Wade)：我们有必要回忆一下10年前发生的事情。当时的金融危机过后，关于“我们不仅需要加强监管，而且需要建立一个全‘新国际金融体系’”的讨论达到高潮。然而，2000年之后，由于危机依然只局限于新兴市场，讨论逐渐平息了。

人们需要付出更坚决的努力，遏制银行不计后果地使用资金并误导消费者的倾向。

THE DAY THE DREAM DIED
 
By Martin Wolf
Thursday, April 10, 2008
 

Remember

March 14, 2008: it was the day the dream of global free-market capitalism died. For three decades we have moved towards market-driven financial systems. By its decision to rescue Bear Stearns, the Federal Reserve, the institution responsible for monetary policy in
the US, declared this era over. Deregulation has reached its limits. (Full column at www.ft.com/wolf)
Ricardo Hausmann (Harvard): Martin may have a point, but I believe it is macro policy, not financial policy, that needs to be at centre stage.

I would put more of the blame on the way monetary policy is conducted. Based on the so-called Taylor rule, it sets the interest rate as low as possible, so long as the discomfort with inflation is not larger than the discomfort with unemployment, and blatantly disregards the current account, the exchange rate, asset prices, international finance, the rate of growth of credit or the balance sheets of households.

A macro policy that overshoots the sustainable growth rate by encouraging citizens to overborrow is not going to be made safe through financial regulation.

 


Guillermo Calvo (Columbia): I agree with Ricardo's emphasis of macro policies. The financial system is much like the nervous system: it is in contact with the whole body. Important as those issues are, however, there is the risk that financial distress may be distracting us from the recent surge of another type of vulnerability: much poorer price and exchange rate anchoring. If left unattended, this weakness may result in a new type of crisis.

The period of “great moderation” from the 1980s until now has given central banks the illusion they can implement an incredibly clever nominal anchoring system by manipulating a reference interest rate to such an extent that it is safe to let the exchange rate and the stock of money be fully determined by market forces.

But central banks may be about to lose that awesome power. The reason is that they are venturing into areas that go beyond standard liquidity management by acquiring assets, some of which could be insolvent or require major rescheduling. These are fiscal operations that might tend to deteriorate the already weak US fiscal stance, for instance.

The world may be on the brink of a regime in which the volatility of exchange rates increases the complexity of current problems by involving vital areas such as world trade. I think it is time for the international community to address those issues head on. Complacency got us into the subprime mess; let's not do the same with monetary policy. Maybe my concerns are overblown, but it is always better to prevent than to cure.
Adam Posen (Peterson Institute): The issue politically will, alas, not be limited to whether we need more regulation. As was the case wrongly with the Asian financial crisis for the “East Asian model”, this will be considered a test of the “Anglo-Saxon model”. And it will come up as a barrier to liberalisation more generally. And this is very bad.

Life is complicated, so events get over determined. The Asian financial crisis was not in fact an overall verdict on the multiple economic systems there, as the variety of crisis recovery experiences bore out. But it did show the problems with overinvestment by cronies. Similarly this financial turmoil in the US shows that if one allows under provisioning by banks, does not prevent fraud, and institutionalises useless “AAA” ratings, bad things happen.

It does not show anything about the worth or validity of the arms-length approach to business or of the preference for securitisation over relationship lending. Yet that is where the discussion is heading in Europe and Asia: that relationship-based lending and insider/stakeholder corporate governance are not harmful, and that the opposite “American way” is unstable. This is demonstrably false. US productivity growth in the past 15 years bears this out. But that will now get lost.

Martin may well be right that this is a turning point, a local maximum, for “free-market capitalism”, but the danger to it comes from a different angle than he expresses.
Robert Wade (London School of Economics): It is worth remembering what happened 10 years ago. After the financial crises then, there was an upsurge of discussion about the need not just for more regulation but for a whole “new international financial architecture”. But, after 2000, as the crisis remained confined to emerging markets, discussion petered out.

A more determined effort will have to be made to curb the tendency of banks to be reckless with their capital and to mislead consumers.

信贷危机逆转美英“退市”趋势
 
英国《金融时报》迈克尔•麦肯兹(Michael Mackenzie)纽约报道
2008年4月10日 星期四
 

此轮信贷紧缩前美英股市近年牛市行情的一股关键驱动力，目前正发生逆转。

在此次信贷市场动荡之前，企业股票回购热潮以及私人股本收购上市公司交易的猛增，推动股价上涨。在低廉的举债成本的推助下，这一趋势被冠以“去股权化”（de-equitisation）的丑名，因为股票市场的股本基础出现萎缩。

然而，这一趋势已经开始转变，金融公司提高股本以改善资产负债状况，私人股本交易骤减，只有少量交易，同时，随着债券发行市场的枯竭，公司发债成本亦大幅上升。

 

企业正更多地寻求通过股权融资、而非债权融资来筹集资金，同时削减股票回购规模以保存现金。最近一家通过股权融资的公司是美国储蓄及贷款机构Washington Mutual，该公司4月8日宣布，获私人股本公司TPG牵头的投资集团70亿美元注资。

Key driver of bull run in reverse as credit dries up
 

By Michael Mackenzie in New York
Thursday, April 10, 2008
 

A key driver of the bull run in US and UK stock markets in recent years before the credit crunch is now being reversed.

A wave of corporate share buybacks and a surge in private equity takeovers of listed companies helped propel stock prices higher before the turmoil in credit markets. The trend, fuelled by cheap debt, became known under the ugly name of “de- equitisation” as the equity base of stock markets shrunk.

That shift, however, has turned as financial companies raise equity capital to repair balance sheets, private equity deals slow to a trickle and the cost of raising corporate debt rises sharply as its availability dries up.

 

Companies are increasingly looking to raise funds through equity issues instead of debt and conserve cash by scaling down on share buybacks. Washington Mutual became the latest company to raise funds through an equity issue when it announced on the 8 April a $7bn capital injection from an investment group led by TPG, the private equity firm.

“If we were to ask investors for one buzzword to explain the rationale for the last bull market [2003 – 2007] it is a fair bet that ‘de-equitisation' would feature high up on this list. The logic behind this theme was simple and compelling,” says Graham Secker, a European strategist at Morgan Stanley. “Debt was cheaper than equity, so companies would benefit from raising borrowing to buy back their own stock.

But Mr Secker says with the cost of equity falling to its lowest level, relative to debt, since 2001, there is expected to be a large increase in equity issuance.

“If the old paradigm was de- equitisation, the new paradigm is re-equitisation,” he says.

The lower cost of raising equity rather than debt is illustrated by the large difference between US Treasury and corporate junk bond yields. This gap is now about 7.3 per cent, up from 2.75 per cent a year ago.

Already in the first quarter, stock buybacks in the US dropped to their lowest in five quarters to $136.3bn, according to data from TrimTabs. This trend has been led by financial companies, says Standard & Poor's.

However, TrimTabs' number of buyback announcements among US companies in the first-quarter was the third-highest in its records. “Buybacks are being used to return capital to shareholders by a much broader swathe of companies than was the case even five years ago,” it says.