日本重振經濟不能單靠貨幣寬鬆

The unveiling by Shinzo Abe, Japan’s new prime minister, of “Abenomics” – with its pillars of monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and structural reform – has apparently impressed the markets so much that the yen has fallen against leading currencies and Japanese stocks have moved sharply higher.

日本新任首相安倍晉三(Shinzo Abe)倡導的“安倍經濟學”(Abenomics)包括三大支柱：貨幣寬鬆、財政刺激和結構改革。市場顯然大受激勵，日元兌主要貨幣走低，日本股市大幅攀升。

Of the three pillars, expectations are high that aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan will pull the economy out of its deflationary spiral.

在這三大支柱中，人們寄予厚望的是，日本央行(BoJ)激進的寬鬆貨幣政策將推動經濟走出通縮螺旋。

But the fact that the market has moved so much without a single shot being fired by either the central bank or the government begs the question: how much of this is hype and how much is justified?

然而，不管是日本央行還是日本政府都尚未射出一顆子彈，市場變動卻如此巨大，這讓人質疑：這裏面有多少誇大其詞的成分，又有多少合理之處？

The greatest cause of both the deflation and economic weakness of the past two decades is a lack of private sector borrowers. The bursting of the country’s debt-financed bubble in 1990 left the private sector with a huge debt overhang. To restore its financial health and escape negative equity, the private sector as a whole had no choice but to pay down debt or increase savings levels, even at zero interest rates. Although most private sector balance sheets were repaired by 2005, a serious aversion to debt remains.

過去20年間，導致通縮和經濟疲軟的最主要因素是私人部門借貸者匱乏。1990年日本債務融資泡沫的破裂讓私人部門債臺高築。要使日本金融業恢復健康，避免出現負資產，私人部門別無選擇，只能償付債務，或者提高儲蓄水平，即便利率爲零。儘管私人部門到2005年已經修復了大部分資產負債表，但依然存在嚴重的債務厭惡情緒。

Today, the private sector is saving 9 per cent of gross domestic product at zero interest rates, a shockingly high number. The same figure for the US is 7 per cent; for the UK, 4 per cent; and for Spain, 8 per cent, All have record-low interest rates. These numbers suggest the private sectors of all these countries are still strengthening their balance sheets instead of maximising profits.

目前，在零利率水平下，私人部門儲蓄仍佔到國內生產總值(GDP)的9%，這一數字之高令人震驚。美國的儲蓄率是7%，英國是4%，西班牙是8%，這幾個國家的利率都處於最低紀錄水平。這些數字表明，所有這些國家的私人部門仍在增強資產負債表，而不是追逐利潤最大化。

While repairing balance sheets is the right and responsible thing to do, if everybody tries to do it at the same time the result is a deflationary spiral known as balance sheet recession. The shift to debt minimisation is the main reason the US lost 46 per cent of its GDP and 30 per cent of its money supply – which is made up mostly of bank deposits – during the Great Depression, the last full-blown balance sheet recession before Japan fell into one in 1990. It is also the reason near-zero interest rates and massive quantitative easing by the BoJ since 1995 – and by the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank since 2008 – have failed to produce the expected recoveries.

儘管修復資產負債表是正確之舉，也是應盡之事，但如果所有人同時這麼做，結果就是一場通縮螺旋，即所謂的“資產負債表衰退”。追求債務最小化是美國在大蕭條期間GDP下降46%、貨幣供應量（主要由銀行存款構成）減少30%的主要原因，在這次全面的資產負債表衰退之後，日本於1990年也陷入了類似的衰退。這也是日本央行自1995年以來——以及美聯儲(Federal Reserve)和歐洲央行(ECB)自2008年以來——實行近零利率和大規模量化寬鬆，卻沒有產生預期經濟復甦的原因。

With the private sector having no choice but to repair its balance sheet, the only way to keep both the GDP and money supply from shrinking is for the government – the last borrower standing – to step in and borrow the unborrowed savings and spend them in the private sector.

由於私人部門別無選擇，只能修復其資產負債表，要阻止GDP與貨幣供給萎縮，唯一的方法是由“最後的借款人”政府實施干預，借入銀行體系中存留的儲蓄，在私人領域支出。

By taking this route since the onset of the 1990 recession, Japan has managed to keep both its GDP and money supply above the bubble peak, in spite of private sector deleveraging and an 87 per cent decline in commercial property values. The rapid GDP and money supply growth in the US from 1933 onwards – despite the fact that private sector borrowing did not increase at all during this period – were also made possible by increased government borrowing under President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

自1990年衰退開始以後，通過採取這種方法，日本把GDP與貨幣供應量保持在了泡沫時期的峯值之上，儘管私人部門實行去槓桿化、商業地產價值下跌了87%。美國從1933年以後GDP和貨幣供應量迅速增長——儘管在此期間私人部門借貸未見增長——也是由於在總統富蘭克林??羅斯福(Franklin Roosevelt)“新政”推動下政府借貸增加所致。

Although one cannot expect too much from the BoJ’s monetary easing, Abenomics further addresses the problem of the lack of borrowers by making fiscal stimulus and structural reform its second and third pillars.

我們不能對日本央行的貨幣寬鬆抱有太高期望，但“安倍經濟學”把財政刺激和結構改革當成第二和第三支柱，進一步解決了借貸者匱乏的問題。

For growth to become self-sustaining, the private sector must replace the public sector as the provider of final demand. The fiscal pillar in Abenomics is expected to address this challenge by introducing an investment tax credit and other tax incentives to borrow and invest, in order to help the private sector recover from the aversion to debt caused by the deleveraging that began in 1990 and lasted 15 years. The fact that it took the US 30 years, until 1959, to bring interest rates back to the average level of the 1920s suggests that the task of overcoming this trauma is a big one, but it must start somewhere.

要保證增長可以自我持續，私人部門必須取代公共部門，成爲最終需求的提供者。通過推出一項投資稅收優惠以及其他旨在擴大借款和投資的稅收激勵措施，“安倍經濟學”的財政支柱預計將可解決這一挑戰，以期幫助私人部門擺脫從1990年開始、持續15年的去槓桿化引起的債務厭惡心理。美國花費了30年時間，直到1959年才使利率迴歸上世紀20年代的平均水平，就說明治療這種創傷是一項巨大任務，但也必須從某處開始着手。

The third pillar, structural reform, is needed because Japan is a mature economy. For such an economy to grow, deregulation and measures to open up markets are necessary to expand investment frontiers. The fact that Mr Abe has decided to join negotiations for the trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which will involve far-reaching market opening measures – and the fact that he has surrounded himself with senior bureaucrats from the ministry of economy, trade and industry rather than, as is traditionally the case, the ministry of finance – suggests he is serious. This is because structural reform relates to microeconomics, and only those directly involved with industry can offer detailed advice on meaningful measures.

作爲第三條支柱的結構改革是必要的，因爲日本是成熟經濟體，要推動這樣的經濟體發展，就必須放鬆監管，採取開放市場的措施，以擴大投資範圍。安倍決定參與泛太平洋夥伴關係貿易協定的談判（這將涉及深遠的市場開放措施），而且圍繞在他身邊的是通商產業省的高級官員，而不是傳統的大藏省官員，這些事實表明，安倍是認真的。這是因爲結構改革與微觀經濟有關，只有直接與行業打交道的人士才能爲切實的舉措提供詳細建議。

Taken together, the three pillars of Abenomics make sense. Market infatuation with the BoJ is overplayed – but if the measures announced for the second and third pillars are broad enough to address the challenges at hand, Japan may indeed succeed in escaping its balance sheet recession.

“安倍經濟學”的三大支柱放在一起很有意義。市場對日本央行的迷戀被誇大了，但如果所宣佈的有關第二和第三支柱的措施足夠寬泛，可以解決眼前的挑戰，日本或可成功避開資產負債表衰退。

The writer is chief economist at the Nomura Research Institute

本文作者是野村綜合研究所(Nomura Research Institute)首席經濟學家