1937，1937。。。

论坛：江湖理财作者：Beatles发表时间：2009-08-10 23:24
雨夜了啊，静静，读点什么好呢。。。嗯，不如，不如俺们就来听克里斯蒂娜奶奶讲那过去的事情吧！
 
嗯，俺、俺跟着克奶奶读了一遍。。。小声地~~~
 
 
The lessons of 1937                                                                                                    
1937、1937啊
 
Jun 18th 2009
From The Economist print edition
 
In a guest article, Christina Romer says policymakers must learn from the errors that prolonged the Depression                                                                
在《经济学家》的约稿中，Christina Romer警告说：决策者必须从1937年大萧条的延续中汲取教训
 
AT A recent congressional hearing I cautiously noted some “glimmers of hope” that the economy could stabilise and perhaps start to rebound later in the year. I was asked if this meant that we should cancel much of the remaining spending in the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I responded that the expected recovery was both months away and predicated on Recovery Act spending ramping up greatly. Only later did it hit me that I should have told the story of 1937.                                                                                                                                                                              在最近的一次国会听证会上，我小心地提了提“希望之光”。什么意思呢？是说，也许今年晚些时候，经济就能够稳定并且开始复苏起来。有人问，这是不是说，我们要在7870亿刀勒的经济刺激计划中再削减一些花销呢？我的回答是，你们所想像的复苏不但还有好几个月且等，还得要看每一个刀勒是不是花在刀口上，能够节节开花呢！后来呢由这个，我想到应该说说1937年，我们应该回头来看看1937年发生的那些事。
 
The recovery from the Depression is often described as slow because America did not return to full employment until after the outbreak of the second world war. But the truth is the recovery in the four years after Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933 was incredibly rapid. Annual real GDP growth averaged over 9%. Unemployment fell from 25% to 14%. The second world war aside, the United States has never experienced such sustained, rapid growth.                                               
说起大萧条的结束，人们常把那描述成病去如抽丝。为什么这么说呢，因为，直到二战爆发后，美国都没有恢复全员性的就业。但是，事实上，自1933年罗斯福执政后的四年内，经济的快速复苏是惊人的，GDP年实际增长率超过了9%，失业率从25%下降到了14%。抛开二战不说，美国还从未取得过如此持续而快速的增长。
 
However, that growth was halted by a second severe downturn in 1937-38, when unemployment surged again to 19% (see chart). The fundamental cause of this second recession was an unfortunate, and largely inadvertent, switch to contractionary fiscal and monetary policy. One source of the growth in 1936 was that Congress had overridden Mr Roosevelt’s veto and passed a large bonus for veterans of the first world war. In 1937, this fiscal stimulus disappeared. In addition, social-security taxes were collected for the first time. These factors reduced the deficit by roughly 2.5% of GDP, exerting significant contractionary pressure.                                                                                                                             
遗憾的是，到1937－38年间，如此的增长就被新一轮的低迷束缚住了，失业率重新升至19%。其根本性的原因就是，其时，于严重而不幸的疏漏间，紧缩的财政货币政策重新抬头。1936年大增长的一个动力是国会推翻了罗斯福总统的否决，通过了一个庞大的针对一战退伍人员的奖励计划。而到1937年，这个财政刺激方案便偃旗息鼓。更有甚者，社会保险税首次被征收。如此种种削减了占GDP大约2.5%的赤字额，同时带来了巨大的紧缩压力。
 
Also important was an accidental switch to contractionary monetary policy. In 1936 the Federal Reserve began to worry about its “exit strategy”. After several years of relatively loose monetary policy, American banks were holding large quantities of reserves in excess of their legislated requirements. Monetary policymakers feared these excess reserves would make it difficult to tighten if inflation developed or if “speculative excess” began again on Wall Street. In July 1936 the Fed’s board of governors stated that existing excess reserves could “create an injurious credit expansion” and that it had “decided to lock up” those excess reserves “as a measure of prevention”. The Fed then doubled reserve requirements in a series of steps. Unfortunately it turned out that banks, still nervous after the financial panics of the early 1930s, wanted to hold excess reserves as a cushion. When that excess was legislated away, they scrambled to replace it by reducing lending. According to a classic study of the Depression by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, the resulting monetary contraction was a central cause of the 1937-38 recession.                                                                        
值得一提的是，货币紧缩政策的另一个起因是意料之外的。1936年，奉行“流出策略”的美联储开始惶惑不安。在相对宽松的货币政策实施几年之后，美国各大银行把持着大量的储备资金，其数量之大已经大大超出了他们的合法需求。决策者们为此大伤脑筋：一旦通货膨胀形成，这些富余储备的存在是否会使得局面难以收拾呢，亦或，华尔街的“投机之风”会不会重新抬头呢。1936年7月，联储管理委员会宣布现有的富余储备可能“产生危害性的信用扩张”，遂决定，作为“一项防范措施”，冻结这些富余储备。在随后的一系列步骤中，联邦储备委员会将储备需求扩大了一倍。遗憾的是，其时各大银行还依然在三十年代早期金融恐慌的梦魇中踯躅不前，富余的储备对其来说无疑是一根救命稻草。而一旦这些富余储备被依法封锁，慌不择路之时，他们就只能诉诸于减少信贷。根据Milton Friedman 和 Anna Schwartz的著述，此间所引发的货币紧缩政策正是1937－38年衰退的根本原因。
 
The 1937 episode provides a cautionary tale. The urge to declare victory and get back to normal policy after an economic crisis is strong. That urge needs to be resisted until the economy is again approaching full employment. Financial crises, in particular, tend to leave scars that make financial institutions, households and firms behave differently. If the government withdraws support too early, a return to economic decline or even panic could follow. In this regard, not only should we not prematurely stop Recovery Act spending, we need to plan carefully for its expiration. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Recovery Act will provide nearly $400 billion of stimulus in the 2010 fiscal year, but just over $130 billion in 2011. This implies a fiscal contraction of about 2% of GDP. If all goes well, private demand will have increased enough by then to fill the gap. If that is not the case, broad policy support may need to be sustained somewhat longer.                                       
1937年的这一段插曲给我们上了警示的一课。在经济危机之后果断地宣告复苏并且回归正常的政策是有力的，但是这样的果断还需留待经济趋于全员性就业的实现。尤其是，金融危机的浩劫，所带给金融机构、家庭以及企业的创伤和反应是不一样的。如果政府过早地缩回援手，随之而来的则可能就是经济衰退甚或恐慌。从这方面说来，我们不仅不能过早地停止经济刺激计划的实施，还应当谨慎地规划它们的扩展和延期。根据国会预算办公室的数据，在全盘刺激计划中，2010财政年度的刺激额度达到4000亿元，但是到2011年，就仅有1300亿元了，这就意味着大约会有占GDP的2%的财政紧缩。如果一切顺利，届时私人需求会有所上升从而填补这一空缺；但是，如果不遂人意呢，也许多多少少就还需要更持久宽泛而连续性的政策扶持。
 
Perhaps a more fundamental lesson is that policymakers should find constructive ways to respond to the natural pressure to cut back on stimulus. For example, the Federal Reserve’s balance-sheet has more than doubled during the crisis, drawing considerable attention. Monetary policymakers have made it clear that they believe continued monetary ease is appropriate. Moreover, the Fed’s credit programmes are to some degree self-eliminating: as demand for its special credit facilities shrinks, so will its balance-sheet. But now may also be a sensible time to grant the Fed additional tools to help its balance-sheet contract once the economy has recovered. Some have suggested that the Fed be authorised to issue debt, as many other central banks do. This would enhance its ability to withdraw excess cash from the financial system. Granting such additional tools now could provide confidence that the Fed will be able to respond to inflationary pressures, without it having to create that confidence by actually tightening prematurely.                                                                                                                    一个更为重要的教训或许就是，面对自然而然的压力，决策者们应当寻求建设性的措施来减缓刺激。举例来说呢，在经济危机期间，众目睽睽之下，美联储财务报表上的数字膨胀了一倍。货币政策的制定者们坚称他们持续的货币宽松政策是适度的。更有甚者，在某种程度上，美联储的信用计划却是自相矛盾的：随着对其特殊信用机构的需求萎缩，其财务报表也将缩水。但是，现在，一旦经济得以恢复，作为一个敏感时期，或许就可以授权美联储诉诸于一些额外的工具以校正其财务报表上的紧缩。一些人建议仿效许多其他央行授权美联储发行债券，从而有助于从金融系统回收闲散资金。对这样一些额外措施的放行，在眼下，确实可以提振人们对美联储应对通货膨胀压力的信心，而不用其为应付大众而轻举妄动。
 
 
Now is also the time to think about our long-run fiscal situation. Despite the large budget deficit President Obama inherited, dealing with the current crisis required increasing the deficit substantially. To switch to austerity in the immediate future would surely set back recovery and risk a 1937-like recession-within-a-recession. But many are legitimately concerned about the longer-term budget situation. That is why the president has laid out a plan to shrink the deficit he inherited by half and has repeatedly emphasised the need to reduce the long-term deficit and put the debt-to-GDP ratio on a declining trajectory. In this regard, health-care reform presents a golden opportunity. The fundamental source of long-run deficits is rising health-care expenditures. By coupling the expansion of coverage with reforms that significantly slow the growth of health-care costs, we can dramatically improve the long-run fiscal situation without tightening prematurely.
眼下可谓检视我们长期财政形势的好时机。尽管奥巴马总统任后承接过来的财政预算赤字是巨大的，应对眼前的危机就需要增强赤字的实质性。转身之间即致力于节俭和紧缩将会毫无疑问地阻滞经济的恢复，从而带来类似1937年衰退中的衰退那样的风险。但是，许多人对长期预算形势的担忧也是合乎情理的。这也正是为何总统制定了一项计划，那就是将其接手过来的赤字削减一半，并且再三强调有必要减少长期亏空，并将GDP中负债的比重引入到一个下降的轨道。在这方面，医改则提供了一个良机，日益上升的医保开销就成为弥补长期赤字的根本性来源。通过扩大医保所覆盖的范围，借助改革大幅减缓医保成本的增加，我们就可以显著地改善长期财政形势，而不必提前草率地遏制。
 
As someone who has written somewhat critically of the short-sightedness of policymakers in the late 1930s, I feel new humility. I can see that the pressures they were under were probably enormous. Policymakers today need to learn from their experiences and respond to the same pressures constructively, without derailing the recovery before it has even begun.                                                       
我曾经笔伐过三十年代晚期决策者们的目光短浅，今天却颇为惭愧。可以看到，其时的前辈们所面临的压力或许是巨大的。而今天的决策者们就需要从他们的经验中学习如何建设性地应对同样的危机，而不至于过晚而使得复苏偏离了正确的轨道。
 
 
 
 
 
 
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beatles于2009-08-10 23:38编辑

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