【英语财经】重视金融市场的警示 Heed the fears of the financial markets

Often markets are volatile at the end of a year and then settle down as a new year begins. Not this year. US and European markets closed lower on Friday after a very rough week despite a strong US jobs report. The week saw dramatic declines in China’s stock market and currency. Oil prices fell even in the face of major tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

A week when bad market news makes the front page raises two questions. How much should forecasters and policymakers look to speculative markets as indicators of future prospects? And how alarmed should they be about the prospect of a global slowdown?

Markets are more volatile than the fundamentals they seek to assess. Economist Paul Samuelson quipped 50 years ago, “the stock market has predicted nine of the last five recessions”.

Former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin was right when he would regularly reassure anxious politicos in the Clinton White House that “markets go up, markets go down” on days when a market move created either joy or anxiety. The best executives manage their companies with an eye to long-run profitability, not the daily stock price. And policymakers do best when they concentrate on strengthening economic fundamentals rather than on daily market fluctuations.

Still, since markets are constantly assessing the future and aggregate the views of a huge number of participants, they often give valuable warning when conditions change. Studies have shown that prediction markets do a better job of predicting elections than pollsters. Hollywood studios use such markets to judge the likely success of movies.

Policymakers who dismiss market moves as reflecting mere speculation often make a serious mistake. Markets understood the gravity of the 2008 crisis well before the Federal Reserve. They grasped the unsustainability of fixed exchange rates in Britain, the UK, Mexico and Brazil while the authorities were still in denial, and saw slowdown or recession well before forecasters in countless downturns. While markets do sometimes send false alarms and should not be slavishly followed, the conventional wisdom essentially never recognises gathering storms.

The Economist reports that, looking across all major countries over the past several decades, there were 220 instances in which a year of positive growth was followed by one of contraction. Not once did International Monetary Fund forecasts anticipate the recession in the April of the growth year.

Signals should be taken seriously when they are long lasting and coming from many markets, as with current market indications that inflation will not reach target levels within a decade in the US, Europe or Japan. It is especially ominous when markets fail to rally on what should be good news.

It is conceivable that Chinese developments reflect market psychology and clumsy policy responses, and that the response of world markets is an example of transient contagion. But I doubt it.

Over the past year, about 20 per cent of China’s growth as reported in its official statistics has come from its financial services sector, which is now about as large relative to gross domestic product as in Britain, and Chinese debt levels are extraordinarily high. This is hardly a case of healthy or sustainable growth.

In recent years, China’s growth has come heavily from massive infrastructure investment; China poured more cement and concrete between 2011 and 2013 than the US did in the whole of the 20th century. This, too, is unsustainable. Even if it is replaced by domestic services, China’s contribution to demand for global commodities will fall.

Experience suggests that the best indicator of a country’s future economic prospects is the decisions its citizens make about keeping capital at home or exporting it abroad. The renminbi is under pressure because Chinese citizens are eager to move their money overseas. Were it not for the substantial recent depletion of China’s reserves, the renminbi would have fallen further.

Traditionally, international developments have had only a limited effect on the US and European economies because they could be offset by monetary policy actions. Thus, the US economy grew robustly through the Asian financial crisis as the Fed brought down interest rates. With rates essentially at zero in the industrial countries, however, this option is no longer available, and foreign economic problems are likely to have much more of a direct effect on economic performance.

Because of China’s scale, its potential volatility and the limited room for conventional monetary manoeuvres, the global risk to domestic economic performance in the US, Europe and many emerging markets is as great as at any time I can remember. Policymakers should hope for the best and plan for the worst.

The writer is Charles W Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretary

通常，市场会在年底波动，然后在新的一年开始时归于平静。今年并非如此。尽管美国的就业报告表现强劲，但美国和欧洲股市上周五在经历了非常糟糕的一周后收低。在刚刚过去的这一周，中国股市和人民币大幅下跌。油价在伊朗和沙特阿拉伯关系严重紧张的情况下仍然下跌。

上周市场方面的各种坏消息轮番登上头条，这样的一周提出了两个问题。经济预测者和政策制定者应该在多大程度上将投机市场看作是未来前景的指示标？又应该在多大程度上担心全球放缓的前景呢？

比起他们寻求评估的经济基本面，市场的波动性更大。50年前经济学家保罗?塞缪尔森(Paul Samuelson)曾开玩笑说：“过去5次经济衰退，有9次股票市场都预测到了。”

美国前财政部长罗伯特?鲁宾(Robert Rubin)经常在市场走势带来欢喜或焦虑情绪的时候安慰克林顿政府中感到忧虑的政治人士，“市场总会起起伏伏”，他这样做是对的。最好的高管管理企业时会着眼于长期的盈利能力，而不是企业每天的股价。而最好的政策制定者发挥最好的时候是他们专注于加强经济基本面，而非市场每日波动的时候。

尽管如此，由于市场时时刻刻在为未来估值，并且汇聚了众多参与者的看法，它们通常会在情况变化的时候发出宝贵的警告。一些研究表明，预测市场(prediction market)对选举结果的预测比民调公司更准确。好莱坞的电影公司也利用预测市场来判断电影成功的可能性。

认为市场走势仅反映投机活动的政策制定者往往会犯严重的错误。市场认识到2008年经济危机的严重性要比美联储(Fed)早得多。它们在当局还在否认的时候就领会到英国、墨西哥和巴西固定汇率制的不可持续，在无数次经济低迷时期比预测者早得多地看到了放缓或者衰退。尽管市场有时会发出虚假的警报、我们不应盲从，但主流观点基本从未及时发现过正在酝酿中的严重危机。

《经济学人》(The Economist)报告称，纵观世界所有主要国家，过去几十年中共有220次这样的情况：经济上一年还在增长，下一年就出现了收缩。国际货币基金组织(IMF)的预测没有一次在增长年份的4月预见到了下一年的经济衰退。

如果有多个市场都发出信号且信号持续时间较长，那么这样的信号应该引起我们的重视。当前市场的迹象正是如此，这些迹象表明美国、欧洲和日本的通胀10年内都不会达到目标水平。市场未能因应该是好消息的事态而提振，这是一个尤为不祥的征兆。

有人认为，中国的事态反映出市场情绪和笨拙的政策回应，而全球市场的回应就是一个短暂传染效应的例子。但我对此表示怀疑。

在过去一年里，根据官方数据，中国金融服务业增加值对国内生产总值(GDP)增长的贡献率接近20%，中国金融服务业增加值占GDP比重已经跟英国差不多，而且中国债务水平异常高。这种增长很难说是健康或可持续的。

最近几年里，对中国GDP增长做出重大贡献的是大规模的基础设施投资；中国在2011年至2013年消耗的水泥和混凝土，超过了美国在整个20世纪的消耗量。这也是不可持续的。即便这种投资被国内服务业取代，中国对全球大宗商品需求的贡献也会下降。

经验表明，显示一国未来经济前景的最佳指标是其公民决定将资本留在国内还是转移到国外。由于中国居民迫切希望将资金转移到海外，人民币正承受压力。要不是最近中国大举动用外汇储备干预，人民币原本会跌得更惨。

传统而言，国际事态只会对美国和欧洲经济产生有限的影响，因为这些事态可能被货币政策举措抵消。就是因为这个原因，美国经济在整个亚洲金融危机期间强劲增长，因为美联储降低了利率。然而，如今工业化国家的利率基本上接近零，降息这个选项不再可用，因此外国经济问题可能对这些国家的经济表现产生更大的直接影响。

由于中国规模巨大，具有潜在的波动性以及传统货币政策腾挪空间有限，眼下它对美国、欧洲以及许多新兴市场的国内经济表现构成的外部风险超过了我记忆中的任何时候。政策制定者们应该抱最好的希望，做最坏的打算。

本文作者为哈佛大学(Harvard)查尔斯?W?艾略特大学教授(Charles W. Eliot university professor)，曾任美国财政部长

译者/何黎