【英语财经】资本金充足是银行抵御危机王道 Higher reserves are a less painful way to fix the banks

The US economy has just been through an unprecedented debilitating financial crisis and six years of economic stagnation. It did not have to turn out that way.

What the 2008 crisis exposed was a fragile underpinning of a highly leveraged financial system. Had bank capital been adequate and fraud statutes been more vigorously enforced, the crisis would very likely have been a financial episode of only passing consequence.

If average bank capital in 2008 had been, say, 20 or even 30 per cent of assets (instead of the recent levels of 10 to 11 per cent), serial debt default contagion would arguably never have been triggered. Had Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers continued as capital-conscious partnerships, a paradigm under which both thrived, they would probably still be in business. The objection to a capital requirement of 20 per cent or more, even when phased in over a series of years, is that it will suppress bank earnings and lending. History, however, suggests otherwise.

In the US from 1870 to 2014, with rare exceptions, commercial bank net income as a percentage of equity capital ranged from 5 to 10 per cent annually. That rate edged modestly higher in the run-up to the crisis of 2008, presumably reflecting greater risk associated with a marked expansion in the legal scope of commercial bank powers.

Banks compete for equity capital against all other businesses. The ratio of after-tax profits to net worth for US nonfinancial corporations has, not surprisingly, also ranged from 5 to 10 per cent annually for nearly a century, and the earnings-price yield of US common stock has ranged from 5 to 13 per cent annually since 1890.

In the wake of banking crises over the decades, rates of return on bank equity dipped but soon returned to their narrow range. The sharp fall of 2009, for example, was reversed by 2011. Minor dips more quickly restored net income to its stable historical range. In 2014, the rate was 8.7 per cent. The only significant exception occurred in the Great Depression. But even then, profit rates were back to 1929 levels by 1936.

What makes the stability of banks’ rate of return since 1870 especially striking is the fact that the ratio of equity capital to assets was undergoing a significant contraction followed by a modest recovery. Bank equity as a percentage of assets, for example, declined from 36 per cent in 1870 to 7 per cent in 1950 because of the consolidation of reserves and improvements in payment systems. Since then, the ratio has drifted up to today’s 11 per cent.

So if history is any guide, a gradual rise in regulatory capital requirements as a percentage of assets (in the context of a continued stable rate of return on equity capital) will not suppress phased-in earnings since bank net income as a percentage of assets will be competitively pressed higher, as it has been in the past, just enough to offset the costs of higher equity requirements. Loan-to-deposit interest rate spreads will widen and/or non-interest earnings will increase. An important collateral pay-off for higher equity in the years ahead could be a significant reduction in bank supervision and regulation.

Lawmakers and regulators, given elevated capital buffers, need to be far less concerned about the quality of the banks’ loan and securities portfolios since any losses would be absorbed by shareholders, not taxpayers. This would enable the Dodd-Frank Act on financial regulation of 2010 to be shelved, ending its potential to distort the markets — a potential seen in the recent decline in market liquidity and flexibility.

Well-capitalised banks need to be less fettered in their primary economic function: to assist in the directing of the nation’s scarce savings to fund our most potentially productive investments. Funding cutting-edge capital investments will engender growth in national productivity and standards of living.

The writer is a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve

美国经济刚刚度过一场危害性史无前例的金融危机以及长达6年的经济停滞。这本是可以避免的。

2008年金融危机暴露的是，支撑高杠杆金融体系的基础是脆弱的。如果银行资本金充足且有关欺诈的法律法规得到更严格的执行，那么这场危机原本很有可能是金融领域的一段插曲，其影响转瞬即逝。

如果2008年，银行平均资本金占资产的比例达到20%甚至30%（而不是最近10%至11%的水平），那么债务违约连续性蔓延可能根本就不会发生。如果贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)和雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)当初保持了注重资本金的合伙制企业形式（在这种企业形式下两家公司都曾蓬勃发展），那么它们今天可能还在营业。反对20%或更高资本金要求（即便多年分阶段实行）的理由是，这将打击银行利润和贷款。然而，历史显示并非如此。

从1870年到2014年，在美国，商业银行净利润与权益资本的年度比例为5%到10%，很少有例外。在2008年金融危机之前，这一比例略有上升，这或许反映出与商业银行合法权力空间显著扩大相关的风险上升。

银行业与所有其他行业争夺权益资本。并不令人意外的是，近一个世纪以来，美国非金融企业的税后利润对资产净值的年度比率也是5%到10%，自1890年以来，美国普通股的年度盈利对股价比率为5%到13%。

几十年来，每次银行业危机之后，银行股本回报率刚开始都会下滑，但很快又会回到狭窄区间。例如，2009年股本回报率大幅下滑趋势在2011年被逆转。微幅滑坡更为迅速地让净利润回到了稳定历史区间。2014年，这一比率为8.7%。唯一重大例外出现在大萧条(Great Depression)时期。然而，即便 在那时，利润率也在1936年年底之前回到了1929年的水平。

自1870年以来，银行业回报率一直保持稳定，让这点变得特别引人注目的是，权益资本与资产比经历了显著下滑，随后出现小幅回升。例如，由于准备金制度的巩固和支付系统的改进，银行的权益对资产比率从1870年的36%下滑至1950年的7%。此后，这一比例逐渐回升至现在的11%。

因此，如果历史可以借鉴的话，监管机构逐渐提高对资本金充足率的要求（在权益资本回报率持续稳定的情况下）不会打击阶段盈利，因为银行净利润占资产的比例将被竞争推高，就像过去那样，刚好足以抵消资本金要求提高带来的成本。贷存款利差将扩大，而且（或者）非利息性利润将增加。未来几年银行资本金比例提高附带的一个重要好处可能在于银行监督和监管的大幅削减。

在资本金缓冲提高后，立法者和监管者担心银行贷款和证券组合质量的必要性大大降低，因为任何损失都将由股东、而非纳税人承担。这使得我们可以搁置2010年有关金融监管的《多德-弗兰克法案》(Dodd-Frank Act)，从而消除其扭曲市场的可能性，我们在市场流动性和灵活性最近的下滑中看到了这种可能性。

银行的基本经济职能是帮助引导这个国家稀缺的储蓄为我们最具潜力的生产性投资提供资金，资本金充足的银行在发挥这一职能方面应受到小得多的限制。为前沿资本投资提供资金，将带来全国生产率的增长以及生活水平的提高。

本文作者是前美联储(Fed)主席

译者/梁艳裳