经济学人：新兴市场的量化宽松

经济学人：新兴市场的量化宽松(2020.05.21) .zhubiaoti {font-family: 黑体;font-size:18pt;line-height:23pt; text-align:center;FONT-weight:800;color:black} .fubiaoti {font-family: 黑体;font-size:14pt;line-height:20pt; text-align:center;FONT-weight:700;color:black} .zhongwen{font-size:12pt;line-height:180%} .yingwen{font-size:13pt;line-height:150%} .tiyao{font-family: 楷体_GB2312;font-size:14pt;line-height:150%} 　　提要：很长时间以来，新兴市场一直对量化宽松心怀怨恨。而今，随着发达经济体以空前力度推进量化宽松，新兴市场也不再继续旁观和抱怨，而是纷纷开始实施或考虑该政策。不过，新兴市场实施该政策的目的不同于发达经济体。它们既不是为了以非常规手段压低借贷成本，也不是为了以不当手段为政府提供融资，而是为了稳定金融市场。 　　（外脑精华·北京）新兴市场加入量化宽松阵营 　　很长时间以来，新兴市场一直对量化宽松心怀怨恨。2012年美联储开始实施第三轮资产购买计划时，巴西财长Guido Mantega就指责美国发动“货币战争”。2013年，印度政府首席经济顾问Raghuram Rajan曾以丘吉尔式的句式批评道：“经济政策领域，从没有过如此少的人，以如此单薄的理由，花掉如此之多的金钱。”。 　　为应对新冠疫情，人们又在花费巨额金钱。但这次花钱的不再是少数人。据评级机构惠誉估算，美国、欧元区、英国和日本央行今年将购买6万亿美元资产，规模3倍于2013年创下的前期峰值。而新兴市场也不再继续旁观和抱怨。智利、哥伦比亚、哥斯达黎加、克罗地亚、匈牙利、印尼、波兰、罗马尼亚、南非和土耳其都已开始或准备购买各种债券。更多国家正在考虑量化宽松政策。甚至巴西国会也已通过所谓“战争预算”法，扩大了央行在危机时期购买国债及其他债券的权利。 　　迄今为止，新兴市场央行购买资产的规模仍小于富国央行。印尼央行已持有本国可交易国债的15%左右，还有可能大幅增持国债。据瑞银估算，如果波兰央行买进其财政刺激计划所需增发的全部国债，那么其债券持有总量将达到本国GDP的8.7%左右。不过，其他央行计划购买的债券总量都不超过5%。对比来看，2020年初美联储持有的美国国债约为该国GDP的10%，而且据预测，今年该比例将翻一番。 　　政策目标不同于发达经济体 　　然而，批评者担心，相比发达经济体，新兴市场的量化宽松政策更危险，也缺少必要性。量化宽松会损及来之不易的央行独立性。例如，巴西宪法对央行的限制就反映了该国历史上恶性通胀的影响。而且，尽管多数大型新兴经济体现已有效控制了通胀，但它们仍然担心，不守货币纪律可能引发对本币的挤兑。 　　另一方面，新兴市场确实也不像发达经济体那样需要量化宽松。智利和秘鲁的基准利率都已降至极限。但大多数其他新兴市场央行依然拥有常规货币政策空间。例如，印尼和南非的政策利率都依然高于4%。 　　那么，为什么新兴市场央行要采取量化宽松政策？原因在于，它们实施该政策的目的不同于发达经济体。它们既不是为了以非常规手段压低借贷成本，也不是为了以不当手段为政府提供融资，而是为了稳定金融市场。巴西央行行长表示，其债券购买政策与汇市干预政策相似。正如巴西央行不会锁定雷亚尔汇率，它也无意锁定债券收益率。不过，巴西央行会力图避免利率波动。南非央行也表示，其资产购买政策的目的并非刺激需求，而是确保金融市场平稳运行。 　　目前，量化宽松政策仍背负着一些恶名，如重商主义手段（作为货币战争的武器）或是货币冒险行为。但这些恶名正在得到洗刷。一些央行自称采取了量化宽松政策，但事实上并非如此。例如，韩国央行承诺从金融机构购买不限量债券，后者3个月后进行回购。这种“回购”操作相当于担保贷款，而非直接购买债券。几乎不会有经济学家将其称为“量化宽松”。但韩国央行对这个名称并不反感。在央行政策领域，如此大规模支出并未引起人们普遍担忧的局面是前所未见的。 　　英文原文： QE too 　　Unconventional monetary policy is not just for the rich world. Emerging markets have long resented quantitative easing (QE). When America’s Federal Reserve began its third round of asset purchases in 2012, Guido Mantega, then Brazil’s finance minister, accused it of starting a “currency war”. In 2013 Raghuram Rajan, then the chief economic adviser to India’s government, expressed his displeasure in the manner of Winston Churchill: “Never in the field of economic policy has so much been spent, with so little evidence, by so few.” 　　In response to the covid-19 pandemic, much is being spent again. But not by so few. The central banks of America, the euro area, Britain and Japan are set to buy $6trn-worth of assets between them this year, according to Fitch, a rating agency, three times what they bought in 2013, the previous peak. And emerging markets are no longer grumbling on the sidelines. Monetary authorities in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Hungary, Indonesia, Poland, Romania, South Africa and Turkey have prepared or begun purchases of bonds of various kinds. Still more are contemplating it. Even in Brazil, congress has passed what it calls the “war budget” law, amending the constitution to give the central bank more freedom to buy government bonds and other assets during this crisis. 　　The scale of emerging-market purchases is small so far in comparison with the Churchillian appetites of central banks in the rich world. Bank Indonesia, which already owns about 15% of tradable government bonds, may end up adding significantly to its holdings. The National Bank of Poland could end up owning bonds worth about 8.7% of GDP, according to UBS, a bank, if it buys all of the additional debt required to finance the country’s stimulus plan. But no other central bank is poised to buy bonds worth more than 5% of GDP, UBS calculates. By comparison, the Federal Reserve already held Treasuries equivalent to about 10% of GDP at the start of 2020, and is expected to roughly double that percentage over the course of the year. 　　Critics nonetheless worry that QE is both more dangerous and less necessary in emerging markets than it is elsewhere. It imperils the hard-won independence of monetary authorities that have struggled in the past to keep their distance from big-spending politicians. Brazil’s constitutional limits on the central bank, for example, reflect its history of hyperinflation, when governments resorted to the printing press to finance their populism. And although inflation is now firmly under control in most big emerging markets (exceptions include Argentina, Nigeria and Turkey), many of these countries still worry that monetary indiscipline can lead to destabilising runs on their currency. 　　QE is also, surely, less needed in the emerging world. In Chile and Peru benchmark interest rates are already about as low as they can go. But in most of their peers, central banks still have room to ease monetary policy by conventional means. In Indonesia and South Africa, for instance, the policy interest rate is still over 4%. 　　Why then are central banks pressing ahead? They believe their bond purchases serve a distinct purpose. They are neither an unconventional way to lower borrowing costs nor an illicit one to finance the government. The aim instead is to stabilise financial markets. In Brazil the president of the central bank says its bond purchases will resemble foreign-exchange intervention. It will not try to peg bond yields any more than it pegs the real. But it will try to smooth out jumps. The South African Reserve Bank says that its purchases are not meant “to stimulate demand”, but to ensure a “smoothly functioning market”. 　　In some quarters QE is still a tainted term, associated either with mercantilism, as a weapon in a currency war, or monetary adventurism. But the stigma is fading. Indeed some central banks now say they are doing QE even when they aren’t. The Bank of Korea, for example, has resolved to buy unlimited amounts of bonds from financial institutions that promise to repurchase them after three months. These “repo” operations amount to collateralised loans, not outright purchases. Few economists would describe them as QE. But far from resisting the term, the Bank of Korea has embraced it (“It wouldn’t be wrong to say we began quantitative easing,” noted one official). Never in the field of central banking have so many worried so little about buying so much. 来源：经济学人 \t