評論
打印
Finance & economics
財經板塊
The European Central Bank
歐洲中央銀行
Promises, promises
滿口承諾
What the ECB's new target means in practice
歐洲央行的新目標究竟意味著什么
For most of its 23 years of life the European Central Bank (ECB) had the fuzzy inflation target of"below, but close to, 2%". No one knew what precisely that meant, but the consensus among economists was that the bank was aiming for inflation in the region of 1.7-1.9%. In any case stubbornly low inflation rendered the question almost academic. Average annual inflation in the euro area since 2013 has been just 0.9% compared with 1.9% in America, even though interest rates are below zero and the ECB has hoovered up government and corporate bonds for years in an attempt to gin up the economy.
歐洲中央銀行(ECB)自成立已有23年，大部分時間里其模糊的通脹目標都“低于但接近2%”。沒有人知道這究竟意味著什么，經濟學家們則一致認為央行在試圖將通脹率控制在1.7-1.9%。無論如何，長期的低通脹使得這一問題幾乎成了一個學術問題。自2013年以來，雖然利率低于零，且歐洲央行多年來一直在吸收政府和公司債券試圖刺激經濟，但歐元區的年平均通脹率僅為0.9%，而美國則為1.9%。
The bank's struggle to attain its target has prompted some soul-searching. Last year Christine Lagarde, its president, launched a review of its strategy, which held "listening" events and pored over academic papers. Its conclusions were announced on July 8th. The bank plans eventually to incorporate the impact of climate change inits models and, potentially,to reflect climate considerations in its asset purchases. It also intends to pay attention to the cost of owning a house when it studies inflation (in contrast to practice in otherrich countries, this is notincluded in the euro area's measure of consumer prices). And it unveiled a new symmetric inflation target, of 2%.
該行為實現目標所做出的努力引發了一些人的反思。去年，其總裁克里斯蒂娜·拉加德啟動了一項對其戰略的評估，該評估舉辦了“傾聽”活動，并研讀了學術論文。其結論于7月8日公布。世行計劃最終將氣候變化的影響納入其模型，并可能在其資產購買中反映氣候因素。它還打算在研究通貨膨脹時關注擁有一套房子的成本(與其他富裕國家的做法相反，該項沒有包括在歐元區的消費價格指標中)。它還公布了一個新的對稱通脹目標，即2%。
The greater clarity around the target is welcome, and might ward off concerns that the ECB will raise interest rates before an economic recovery takes firm hold, as it did in 2008 and 2011. Ms Lagarde noted on July 8th that the change won unanimous support from the bank's 25-strong governing council. But working out what it means for the ECB's monetary policy may prove more contentious.
人們希望歐洲央行能有更明確的目標，能夠消除人們對將在經濟復蘇站穩腳跟前加息的擔憂，就像它在2008年和2011年所做的那樣。拉加德女士于7月8日指出，這一改變贏得了銀行25人管理委員會的一致支持。但這對歐洲央行的貨幣政策來說意味著什么，可能會引發更多爭議。
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