美聯儲主席珍妮特·耶倫 金融危機不是低利率惹的禍

Failure, they say, is an orphan, and the financial crisis is no different.

人們都說，失敗無主。上次金融危機也是一樣。

In a speech on Wednesday morning at an International Monetary Fund conference, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen argued that the low-interest-rate policy that the Fed maintained throughout the 2000s did not contribute to the financial crisis.

上週三早間在參加國際貨幣基金（International Monetary Fund）會議發表演講時，美聯儲主席珍妮特o耶倫宣稱，美聯儲在本世紀最初幾年一直維持低利率政策的行爲並不是促成2008年金融危機的原因。

“It is not uncommon to hear it suggested that the crisis could have been prevented or significantly mitigated by substantially tighter monetary policy in the mid-2000s,” Yellen said. “At the very least, however, such an approach would have been insufficient to address the full range of critical vulnerabilities” facing the country at the time.

“上一次危機本來可能通過2005年前後大幅度收緊貨幣政策而得到阻止或顯著緩解，聽到這麼講的情況並不少見，”耶倫表示。“但至少，這樣的方式原本就不足以解決（美國當時面臨的）全部弱點。”

Yellen instead argued that raising rates during the run up to the crisis would have led to higher unemployment without getting to the core issues facing the financial system, which included the use of exotic and poorly understood derivatives and poor risk management on the part of large, systemically important financial institutions. Yellen also referred to a body of empirical studies that have shown that higher interest rates wouldn’t have been an effective tool at fighting the real estate bubble, unless they were raised to such a degree as to cause unacceptable levels of unemployment.

相反，耶倫認爲，在危機發生前提高利率只會推高失業率，而不能解決金融系統面臨的核心問題，其中包括使用外來的、人們知之甚少的衍生產品，以及系統重要性大型金融機構風險管理不善的問題。耶倫提到了實證研究的內容，高利率並不是抗擊房地產泡沫的有效工具，除非利率高到導致不可接受的高失業率。

Yellen argued that, instead, the central bank should have focused on using regulatory tools like limits on short-term funding and requirements for banks to hold higher levels of capital in order to fight dangerous bubbles and to make banks healthy enough to survive.

相反，耶倫認爲，美聯儲原本應該專注於使用限制短期融資和要求銀行持有高水平資本等監管工具，以便抗擊造成威脅的泡沫，同時確保銀行系統足夠健康，能夠生存下來。

The takeaway for market participants is clear: this speech is a doubling down on Yellen’s promise to keep interest rates low for a long time. Despite the fact that Fed officials like James Bullard and Charles Plosserhave been publicly arguing for higher interest rates, it’s clear that the Fed chair doesn’t see any reason to raise rates before the end of next year, at the earliest.

市場參與者從中得到的收穫很明確：這個演講是對耶倫表示將長時間保持低利率承諾的雙重確認。儘管詹姆斯·布拉德和查爾斯o普洛瑟等美聯儲官員一直公開提倡加息，很清楚的一點是，美聯儲這位主席不認爲有任何理由加息，至少