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The fragile four
脆弱四國
Which emerging markets are most vulnerable to American financial tantrums?
哪些新興市場最易受到美國金融動蕩的影響？
There are few greater honours than becoming finance minister of your country. But there are better and worse days to start the job. Chatib Basri became finance minister of Indonesia, the fourth-most-populous country in the world, on May 21st 2013. That was only a day before the start of a financial sell-off known as the "taper tantrum". Yields on American Treasuries rose abruptly after Ben Bernanke, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, spoke about reducing (or tapering) the Fed's bond purchases. Higher American yields shattered the appeal of emerging markets, undermining their currencies, bonds and shares. "I had very little time to adjust," Mr Basri noted in 2016.
沒有什么比成為貴國的財政部長更偉大的榮譽了。但是，這項工作的開始有好有壞。2013年5月21日，查提布·巴斯里成為世界第四人口大國印度尼西亞的財政部長。而就在一天前，金融拋售開始了，即所謂的“縮減恐慌”。在時任美聯儲主席本·伯南克談到減少(或縮減)美聯儲的債券購買計劃后，美國國債的收益率突然上升。更高的美國國債收益率粉碎了新興市場的吸引力，削弱了它們的貨幣、債券和股票。“我幾乎沒有時間調整，”巴斯里在2016年指出。
Policymakers in emerging markets now fear a second such tantrum. As Treasury yields jumped at the end of last month, a broad index of emerging-market shares fell by over 7% in little more than a week. This is "shaping up to be a bruiser", wrote Robin Brooks of the Institute of International Finance, a bankers' group, on Twitter. Markets have calmed down in recent days. But if they again lose their composure, which emerging economies will be worst hit and why
現在，新興市場的政策制定者擔心再次出現這樣的恐慌。隨著上月底美國國債收益率的飆升，新興市場股票指數在一周多一點的時間里下跌了7%以上。國際金融協會(一個銀行家團體)的羅賓·布魯克斯在推特上寫道，這“正在成為一個彪形大漢”。最近幾天市場已經平靜下來。但如果它們再次失去冷靜，哪些新興經濟體將受到最嚴重的打擊，為什么？
One way to identify future casualties is to look at the characteristics of past victims. Back in 2013 Indonesia was one of an unfortunate group of emerging markets dubbed the "fragile five" by James Lord of Morgan Stanley, a bank. The group, which also included Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey, were all struggling with inflationary pressure, an overvalued exchange rate and a conspicuous current-account deficit (which measures a country's trade deficit among other things). A few months into the tantrum Indonesia reported that its deficit had increased to 4.4% of GDP. The "market went into shock", Mr Basri recalls.
確定未來受害者的一種方法是觀察以往受害者的特征。早在2013年，摩根史坦利銀行的詹姆斯·勞德就將不幸的新興經濟體稱為“脆弱五國”，而印尼就是其中之一。其它國家還包括巴西、印度、南非和土耳其，它們都在同通貨膨脹壓力、匯率高估和明顯的經常賬戶赤字(用以衡量一個國家的貿易赤字)作斗爭。在動蕩的幾個月后，印尼報告其赤字已經上升到GDP的4.4%。“市場陷入了震蕩”，巴斯里回憶道。
Similar factors were combined into a "vulnerability index" by the Fed's own economists in 2014. For the most part, the worse a country scored on the index, the more its currency fell in the taper tantrum. This kind of evidence has prompted Fed officials ever since to argue that the sensitivity of emerging markets to the Fed's words and deeds depends a lot on economic fundamentals in the emerging markets themselves.
美聯儲自己的經濟學家在2014年將類似的因素組合成一個“脆弱性指數”。在大多數情況下，一個國家在該指數上的得分越低，其貨幣在“縮減恐慌”中下跌的就越多。這類證據促使美聯儲官員自那以后提出，新興市場對美聯儲言行的敏感性在很大程度上取決于新興市場自身的基本經濟要素。
To the Fed's critics, that can sound like blaming the victim. But it is also a hopeful message. It implies that emerging markets have some control of their own fates. They are not "purely passive objects of the effects of Fed policy decisions", as Mr Bernanke put it in 2015. Mr Basri has recounted the numerous measures he and other policymakers introduced to make Indonesia less fragile. They narrowed the country's current-account deficit by raising interest rates, tightening credit regulations and cutting fuel subsidies, despite the political damage that would ensue. Cabinet discussions were very "dynamic", Mr Basri writes.
對美聯儲的批評者來說，這聽起來像是在指責受害者。但這也是一條充滿希望的信息。這意味著新興市場在一定程度上控制著自己的命運。它們并非像伯南克在2015年所說的那樣，是“美聯儲政策決定影響的純粹被動對象”。巴斯里詳述了他和其他政策制定者為使印尼不那么脆弱而采取的眾多措施。它們通過提高利率、收緊信貸管制和削減燃料補貼來縮小該國的經常賬戶赤字，盡管這將帶來政治上的損害。巴斯里寫道，內閣討論非常“活躍”。
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