Capital bonanzas
財(cái)源滾滾

Does Wall Street’s meltdown show financial globalisation itself is part of the problem?
這次華爾街的災(zāi)難意味著金融全球化本身就是問題的一部分嗎？

“THANK God,” said one Latin American finance minister earlier this year. “At least this time it isn’t our fault.”

“謝天謝地，”一位拉丁美洲的財(cái)政部長在今年早些時(shí)候說，”至少這次不是我們的錯(cuò)。”

The meltdown of America’s financial system may look very different from the emerging-market crises that overwhelmed Thailand in 1997 or Russia in 1998. This time there has been no currency collapse, no government default. Then, there were no collateralised-debt obligations or credit-default swaps.

美國金融體系的災(zāi)難跟在1997，98年橫掃泰國和俄羅斯的新興市場危機(jī)有所不同。這次沒有貨幣崩潰，沒有政府失職。而上次卻沒有擔(dān)保抵押債務(wù)，或者信用違約互換。

Yet the minister was justified in seeing parallels between America’s crisis and the emerging-market episodes. In all of them vast current-account deficits were financed by huge capital inflows. The afflicted countries saw housing speculation, asset bubbles and cheap loans followed by a credit crunch and the seizing up of the financial system. And Wall Street’s meltdown raises the same questions as the crises of a decade ago: what will the direct effects on emerging markets be? If the world’s richest economies are vulnerable to global financial turmoil, should developing countries not seek to insulate themselves from it?

然而上面那位財(cái)政部長將美國的金融危機(jī)和新興市場的金融危機(jī)看作一致也是恰如其分的。所有這些國家都以大量的資本流入為經(jīng)常賬戶赤字融資。于是這些國家便首先出現(xiàn)房地產(chǎn)投機(jī)，資產(chǎn)泡沫和低廉的貸款，隨之而來的是信貸緊縮和金融體系的停滯。這讓上述國家深受折磨、痛苦不堪。而華爾街的災(zāi)難提出了與十年前金融危機(jī)相同的問題：這場災(zāi)難將會(huì)給新興市場帶來什么直接影響？如果世界最富裕的經(jīng)濟(jì)體還在全球金融動(dòng)蕩面前還脆弱不堪，為何新興市場不尋求與之隔絕呢？

Two recent papers* cast light on these questions. They conclude that, although financial globalisation has big costs, these can be minimised and potential gains increased by better policy. Financial globalisation itself, they imply, ought to be seen not so much as a bad thing, but as too much of a good one.

最新的兩篇論文（注1）闡明了這些問題。他們的結(jié)論是，雖然金融全球化有巨大的成本，但是這些成本可以最小化而潛在的收益可以依靠政策的改善而增加。他們認(rèn)為，金融全球化本身不應(yīng)該看作一件壞事，而是一件好事。

Beware markets bearing gifts
當(dāng)心市場帶來的木馬

Most emerging markets see their ability to attract foreign money as proof of good management. From this point of view, it should be a blessing that private capital flows to developing countries rose, according to the World Bank, to $1 trillion in 2007, the highest ever. Yet if the study by Carmen and Vincent Reinhart is anything to go by, this should be little cause for celebration.

絕大多數(shù)新興市場將他們吸引外資的能力看作其良好管理的證明。基于這樣的觀點(diǎn)，根據(jù)世界銀行數(shù)據(jù)，2007年流入發(fā)展中國家的資金達(dá)到有史以來最高的1萬億美元，這應(yīng)該看作一件非常幸運(yùn)的事了。然而如果依據(jù)Carmen和Vincent Reinhart的研究結(jié)論的話，這沒什么值得慶賀的。

Taking the experience of 181 countries since 1980, the authors reckon that middle- and low-income countries had a roughly 20% chance of suffering a banking crisis and a 30% chance of a currency crisis, external-debt default or inflation spike (to more than 20% a year) if they experienced what the authors call a “capital-flow bonanza” in the three years beforehand. (They define such a bonanza as an unusual shift of the current account into the red, using that as a proxy for capital inflows since the capital and current accounts mirror each other.) These seem unenviable odds.

根據(jù)自1980年以來181個(gè)國家的經(jīng)驗(yàn)，作者認(rèn)為，如果在之前三年有作者稱之為”財(cái)源滾滾涌入”（它們將財(cái)源滾滾定義為，經(jīng)常賬戶異常變?yōu)槌嘧郑⑶乙源俗鳛橘Y金流入的代理，因?yàn)橘Y本和經(jīng)常賬戶互相反應(yīng)彼此）的話，中低收入國家有大約20％的可能陷入銀行危機(jī)，30％的可能陷入貨幣危機(jī)，外債違約和通貨暴漲（年度通脹率超過20％）。這顯然是不值得羨慕的恩惠。

The authors point out that countries might have suffered disasters anyway, without being showered with money. That turns out to be true-but their chances were quite a bit lower: between 14% and 24% for countries that did not attract so many dollars. In other words, a foreign inflow, as well as financing good things such as public infrastructure and corporate investment, is also associated with debt defaults, inflation and currency crises.

作者指出，上述那樣的國家在沒有大量資金資助下，肯定會(huì)陷入不管何種方式的災(zāi)難之中。這被證明是正確的，但是發(fā)生的概率比較低–大約只有沒有獲得巨額外資的國家14％到24％發(fā)生災(zāi)難的概率。換句話說，外資流入一方面會(huì)資助好的項(xiàng)目，例如公共基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施和公司投資，但另一方面也會(huì)與債務(wù)違約，通貨膨脹和貨幣危機(jī)發(fā)生關(guān)系。

The authors focus on the level of capital flows, rather than their composition. Presumably, countries that attract more foreign direct investment suffer less than those that have a greater amount of footloose portfolio investment or short-term bank lending. But overall, most countries that suck in foreign money show the classic signs of an economic bubble. Using a subset of 66 countries for which there are more detailed figures, the authors show that share prices rose by more than 10% in real terms in the two years before what they call a bonanza, then fell relentlessly for four years, ending below where they started. House prices went up by more than that-15% in real terms over four years during a bonanza-before falling back.

作者更關(guān)注資金流入的數(shù)量而不是它們的構(gòu)成。據(jù)估計(jì)，有大量外資直接投資的國家會(huì)比有大量自由組合投資或者短期銀行貸款的國家所承受的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)要少。但是總體來說，絕大多數(shù)吸入大量外資的國家顯出經(jīng)濟(jì)泡沫的典型特征。用66個(gè)有更多經(jīng)濟(jì)數(shù)據(jù)的國家作為研究對象，作者發(fā)現(xiàn)，在其所謂的引入”財(cái)源滾滾”之前兩年，這些國家的股票按實(shí)值計(jì)算增長10％以上，但是在引入”財(cái)源滾滾”之后卻會(huì)連跌四年，最后降到起始點(diǎn)以下。房價(jià)漲得更多，在”財(cái)源滾滾”的四年內(nèi)按實(shí)際價(jià)值計(jì)算增長了15％，而之后便會(huì)回落。

So why would countries seek out foreign money at all, if its impact is so malign? The answer is that it is not so much the amount of investment that is the trouble; it is its volatility, and especially its tendency to dry up. That makes today’s climate worrying. Mansoor Dailami, the World Bank’s manager of international finance, says private inflows to emerging markets may fall from $1 trillion to only $800 billion-850 billion this year. That may be particularly troublesome because of another difference between this crisis and the Asian one: in 1997-98, more debt was sovereign. Now, much of it is corporate, taken out by Indian, Chinese and other emerging-market companies. That implies a global credit tightening could have as big an impact on emerging markets as slowing import demand in the rich world.

那么即使這么有害，為何這些國家還想積極獲取外資呢？因?yàn)椴⒉皇谴罅客顿Y是麻煩，而是其波動(dòng)性，特別是其即將耗盡的趨勢。這造成了今天憂慮的氣氛。世界銀行國際金融經(jīng)理Mansoor Dailami說，私人資本涌入新興市場會(huì)從1萬億美元下降到今年的8千億到8千5百億美元。這是非常糟糕的。因?yàn)檫@場金融危機(jī)與上次亞洲金融危機(jī)另一個(gè)不同之處在于，在1997到98年，更多的債務(wù)是政府所有的。而現(xiàn)在，這些大部分是公司所有的，會(huì)被印度，中國和其它新興市場的公司獲得。這意味著，全球信貸緊縮對新興市場的影響與發(fā)達(dá)國家和地區(qū)進(jìn)口需求放緩對新興市場的影響一樣大。

Critics of financial globalisation argue that these problems are so great that emerging markets ought to be insulating themselves through capital controls. Many have been doing so. Yet even setting aside doubts about how far this is desirable (it is hard to believe growth in India or Brazil would have reached today’s levels without foreign capital), the studies raise questions about whether capital controls are really the right response.

金融全球化的批評者認(rèn)為，這些問題太大，因此新興市場國家必須采取資本監(jiān)管從而使其免遭其害。許多新興市場國家也就是這么做的。然而即使拋開對資本監(jiān)管到何種程度合適的質(zhì)疑（印度和巴西如果沒有外資投入的話，其增長率很難能夠達(dá)到今天的水平），這兩篇論文也提出了這個(gè)問題：資本監(jiān)管是否是個(gè)正確的應(yīng)對方法？

The second study points out that “sudden stops” of capital inflows tend to be an inverted U-shape: the poorest countries are the least vulnerable to global financial shocks; middle-income countries are the most; but, as you get richer and more integrated into global finance, your vulnerability tends to fall again-and that remains true despite the crisis in America. So it might still make sense for countries like India and Brazil to carry on liberalising. Moreover, as the Reinharts show, a big part of the problem is that capital flows are endemically boom-bust: money floods in and out. They argue that fiscal policy should be used to smooth out such cycles: governments should reduce deficits or run surpluses during bonanzas-the opposite of what they usually do. This implies something of a paradox. Capital flows are supposed to be a reward for good economic behaviour. But as Dani Rodrik, a Harvard professor, says, “these policy conclusions turn capital inflows into an imperative for even deeper reform.”

第二篇論文指出外資流入”驟停”會(huì)對不同經(jīng)濟(jì)體產(chǎn)生”倒U”型的影響：最窮的國家最不可能遭受全球金融沖擊；中等收入國家最可能遭受沖擊；但是隨著你更富有更進(jìn)一步融入全球金融體系，那么遭受沖擊的可能性又會(huì)再次下降–除了美國的金融危機(jī)外，這還是正確的。因此對于像印度和巴西這樣的國家來說繼續(xù)施行自由化政策還是很明智的。此外，如Reinharts所示，最大的問題在于資金流動(dòng)的地方性興衰起伏：資金大量涌入、涌出。他們認(rèn)為金融政策應(yīng)該緩和這樣的起伏周期：政府應(yīng)該在”財(cái)源滾滾”時(shí)減少赤字或者增加盈余–而這些政府的做法恰好與之相反。而這卻是個(gè)悖論。資金流入應(yīng)該是對一個(gè)良好運(yùn)行經(jīng)濟(jì)體的褒獎(jiǎng)、但是如同哈佛教授Dani Rodrik所說：”那些政策卻將資金流入作為深化改革的必須。”