【英语财经】中国政策失误给美联储带来压力 China’s policy failings challenge the Fed

It would be easy to dismiss the recent extreme turbulence in global financial markets as a dramatic, but ultimately unimportant, manifestation of illiquid markets in the dog days of summer. But it would be complacent to do so. There is something much more important going on, involving doubts about the competence and credibility of Chinese economic policy and the appropriateness of the US Federal Reserve’s monetary strategy. These doubts will need to be resolved before markets will fully stabilise once more.

The August turbulence was triggered initially by a renewed collapse in commodity prices. For the most part, this was due to excessive supply in key energy and metals markets, and the sell-off only became extreme when there were panic sales of inventories, and a final unwinding of “commodity carry” trades. This inverse bubble was a commodity market event, not a reflection of weak global economic activity. In fact, taken in isolation, it would probably have been beneficial for world growth, albeit with very uncertain time lags.

However, that reckoned without the China factor. Activity growth in China had rebounded slightly following the piecemeal policy easing in April, but the data available so far for August suggest that the growth rate has subsided again to about 6 per cent, roughly 1 per cent below target. Although this is very far from a hard landing, it undermined confidence.

Furthermore, while overall Chinese activity was not disastrous, the sectors of the economy that were most important for commodities — real estate, construction and manufacturing — were clearly weaker than the expanding services sectors. China pessimists therefore found enough reason to combine commodity price collapses with a weakening manufacturing sector in the country, and claimed that the “inevitable” Chinese hard landing was at hand.

They have claimed this on many occasions in the past, and have always been proved wrong. But, this time, fuel was added to the fire in the form of the maladroit handling of the equity market bubble and the currency devaluation by the Chinese authorities. Suddenly, whatever reputation economic policy makers in China still retained for skill and competence lay in tatters.

Martin Wolf and David Pilling have rightly suggested in the FT that China’s economic problems are deep seated, stemming from an unbalanced economy that is far too dependent on investment, and on inherent contradictions between the need to introduce market forces in the long term, and the need to retain state control to deflate the leverage bubble in the short term. Perhaps the regime of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang needed to be super-human to navigate all this. But the policy errors of mid 2015 suggested instead that they were split, indecisive and confused.

The latest policy interventions, designed to place a floor under a collapsing equity bubble, and to allow a gradual devaluation of an over-valued exchange rate, might both have worked if they had been pursued with clarity and determination. After all, China has more than enough resources to under-pin its equity market and to set its desired exchange rate path. But the policy announcements were opaque and were partially abandoned almost before they had begun.

China’s economic problems will be a long time in the solving, but in the near term a combination of four initiatives would calm market nerves:

? monetary policy needs to be unequivocally eased to reduce deflation fears; so far, it has only been eased enough to offset the tightening effect of capital outflows;

? the exchange rate needs to find a level that no longer needs support from foreign exchange intervention;

? fiscal policy needs to be relaxed to slow the decline in investment;

? a transfer of debt is needed from the local government sector and the banking sector into the central bank and the central government.

Amid internal political feuds, such a co-ordinated package seems a long way off.

The Xi administration may see these steps as a return to the failed policies of President Hu Jintao — with some justification. But its alternative of adherence to pro-market reforms, while necessary for a healthy economic environment in the long run, needs to be buttressed by decisive action now to stabilise the markets. Simplyblaming Mr Li for alleged incompetence, or Mr Hu for a poisoned legacy, will not fix the problem.

Shorn of any reassurance from a credible economic framework in China, western investors have turned their attention to their ultimate security blanket, the Federal Reserve. But the Fed seemed to have embarked on a pre-determined course to raise US interest rates before year end.

Admittedly, it always described this as “data determined”, but it has frequently added that it “expects” lift-off before the end of 2015. This addiction to calendar-related forward guidance, even after it has supposedly been abandoned, has caused trouble. As Lawrence Summers argued this week:

A reasonable assessment of current conditions suggests that raising rates in the near future would be a serious error that would threaten all three of the Fed’s major objectives — price stability, full employment and financial stability.

The financial markets have for a while been acting as if they are experiencing an adverse monetary policy shock from the Fed. In the bond market, the real yield has been rising, while inflation expectations have been falling. In the equity market, a long period of flat performance has given way to a sudden collapse.

My colleagues at Fulcrum, led by Juan Antolin Diaz, have recently been estimating econometric models designed to distinguish between monetary policy, economic demand and economic supply shocks to US markets. Their verdict: the last couple of months have seen a monetary tightening shock, rather similar to the one that hit the world during the taper tantrum in 2013. (A paper will be released on this soon.)

For the whole of 2015, the markets have refused to believe that the Fed would raise interest rates as early, or as fast, as the Federal Open Market Committee has shown in its “dots” charts for future interest rates. One interpretation is that the markets have placed greater weight on the possibility that secular stagnation is taking hold than the Fed has done.

As commodity prices have collapsed and the mood on Chinese policy has darkened, the markets have increased their belief that a rise in US rates would be inappropriate this year. Yet, until Wednesday’s slight adjustment to official Fed policy by William Dudley, the Fed has shown little sign of wobble in its determination to announce lift-off soon. Hence the collision with market confidence this week.

Some investors are beginning to agree with Mr Summers that another dose of quantitative easing may be necessary, even though Mr Dudley says that “QE4″ is far from his agenda. Others think that markets will be stabilised if the Fed simply abandons its oft-stated expectation that rates will rise this year.

What seems clear is that the Fed’s carefully orchestrated path for tighter policy is no longer consistent with stable financial markets. Something will have to give.

Gavyn Davies is a macroeconomist who is now chairman of Fulcrum Asset Management and co-founder of Prisma Capital Partners. He was the head of the global economics department at Goldman Sachs from 1987-2001, and was chairman of the BBC from 2001-2004.

人们很容易轻视近期全球金融市场的极端动荡，认为这只是一次戏剧性事件，但最终并不重要，不过是表明暑假期间市场流动性不佳而已。但如果真这么想就太盲目乐观了。它触及一些相当重要的问题；中国经济政策的能力和公信力，以及美联储(Fed)货币战略的适当性都引起了质疑。在市场再次完全稳定下来以前，必须先解决这些疑虑。

8月份这次动荡最初是由大宗商品价格再次崩溃引发的。在很大程度上，这是由于主要能源和金属市场供大于求造成的，只是在出现恐慌性销售库存、“大宗商品套利”交易的头寸最终解除之后，抛售才变得极端。这一反向泡沫是大宗商品市场的一起事件，并非反映了全球经济活动疲软。事实上，孤立地看，它很可能有利于世界经济增长，尽管有非常不确定的时间滞后。

但是，这种推断是在不考虑中国因素的前提下作出的。今年4月中国出台少量宽松政策后，中国的经济活动增长出现了小幅反弹，但从目前可获得的8月份数据来看，增速再次下降到6%左右，比目标值低了大约1%。虽然还远远谈不到硬着陆，但这影响信心。

此外，尽管中国的整体经济活动并不很糟，但对大宗商品影响最大的经济领域，如房地产、建筑和制造业领域，都明显弱于不断扩大的服务领域。那些对中国持悲观主义的人因而找到了足够的理由，将大宗商品价格崩溃与中国制造业疲软联系到一起，声称中国硬着陆“不可避免”。

过去他们曾在许多场合说过这样的话，每一次都被证明是错的。但这一次，由于中国政府以笨拙方式处理股市泡沫，再加上引导人民币贬值，这些人的论断得到了额外“燃料”。中国的经济政策制定者之前在技巧和胜任能力上无论保有怎样的声誉，现在都丧失殆尽。

英国《金融时报》的马丁?沃尔夫(Martin Wolf)和戴维?皮林(David Pilling)正确地指出，中国的经济问题是深层次的，其根源在于经济不平衡，过度依赖投资，而且深陷一种内在矛盾：长期而言需要引入市场力量，短期又需要保留国家控制，以缩小杠杆泡沫。习近平主席和李克强总理的政权或许需要超凡能力才能驾驭这一切。但2015年中期的政策失误似乎表明，这些政策缺乏一致、犹豫不决并且充满困惑。

最新的政策干预是为了给破裂中的股市泡沫设置一个底部，并让估值过高的人民币逐步贬值。如果它们能够得到透明、坚决的执行，可能都会奏效。毕竟，中国有足够多的资源支撑起股市，并让汇率走势符合它的想法。但这些政策的公布缺乏透明，而且几乎还未开始执行就已经被部分放弃了。

中国经济问题的解决将需要很长时间，但近期内有四项举措可以安抚市场神经：

? 需要明确执行宽松的货币政策以减少通缩担忧。到目前为止，中国的货币政策仅宽松到能够抵消资本外流造成的收紧效应；

? 需要让人民币汇率找到一个不再需要汇市干预扶持的水平；

? 需要放宽财政政策以减缓投资下降；

? 需要将地方政府和银行业的债务转移到央行和中央政府。

内部政治争斗意味着，这种协调一致的一揽子方案似乎还很遥远。

习近平政府或许会将这些举措视为一种重拾胡锦涛时期失败政策的做法——这不无道理。但其替代方案，即坚持市场化改革，尽管从长期来看对健康的经济环境是必要的，但现在需要用果断行动予以支撑，从而稳定市场。仅仅以所谓的能力不足责怪李克强，或者以遗留下来的问题责怪胡锦涛，都无法解决问题。

在无法再从中国的可信经济框架获得安慰的情况下，西方投资者已将注意力转向终极的安全感来源——美联储(Fed)。但美联储似乎已经走上了在年底前加息的既定道路。

没错，美联储一向表示这种举措由“数据决定”，但它又频繁补充“预期”在2015年年底前加息。美联储沉迷于此类它理应已放弃的与日历挂钩的前瞻性指引，已经造成了问题。就如最近劳伦斯?萨默斯(Lawrence Summers)在英国《金融时报》撰文所指出的：

“对当前状况作出的合理评估似乎表明，在最近的将来加息将是一个严重的错误，它将危及美联储的所有三大目标：物价稳定、充分就业和金融稳定。”

一段时间以来，金融市场的表现就好像在经受美联储的不利货币政策冲击。在债券市场上，实际收益率一直在上升。而通胀预期一直在下降。在股票市场上，持续很久的平坦表现让位于突然的下跌。

在胡安?安托林?迪亚兹(Juan Antolin Diaz)的带领下，我在支点资产管理公司(Fulcrum Asset Management)的同事们最近对一个计量经济学模型进行了估测，该模型旨在区分货币政策、经济需求和经济供给对美国市场造成的冲击。他们的结论是：过去两个月出现了货币紧缩的冲击，类似于2013年“削减恐慌”(taper tantrum)时期世界受到的那次冲击。（很快会发布这项研究的论文。）

对于2015年全年，市场拒绝相信美联储会像美国联邦公开市场委员会(FOMC)那张展示未来利率的点阵图那样，那么早（或者那么快）提高利率。一种解读是，市场比美联储更加重视这样一种可能性：长期停滞已经开始形成。

随着大宗商品价格下跌，随着各方对中国政策的信心变得阴霾，市场越来越笃信美国在年内加息是不适宜的。然而，在上周三威廉?达德利（William Dudley，纽约联储行长——译者注）对美联储官方政策作出微调之前，美联储没有表现出加息决心动摇的迹象。因此市场信心上周发生了碰撞。

尽管达德利表示，“第四轮量化宽松”绝不会出现在他的议程上，但一些投资者开始认同萨默斯有关另一轮量化宽松或许必不可少的看法。还有一些人认为，只要美联储放弃其经常声明的在年内加息的预期，市场将会稳定下来。

有一点似乎很清楚，美联储精心策划的收紧政策的道路不再与金融市场稳定相符。有一些东西不得不放弃。

本文作者是宏观经济学家，现任支点资产管理公司董事长、Prisma Capital Partners联合创始人。他在1987年到2001年间担任高盛(Goldman Sachs)全球经济学部门主管，2001年到2004年间担任英国广播公司(BBC)董事长

译者/许雯佳